The project will disseminate weather-related inputs to farmers to improve land productivity and boost crop output

About 50,000 farmers in ten districts of Maharashtra are expected to benefit from a pilot project, which will disseminate weather-related inputs using Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to improve land productivity and boost crop output. It is being launched jointly by the National Bank for Agricultural and Rural Development (NABARD) and India Meteorological Department (IMD), and is to be financed under the Farmers' Technology Transfer Fund (FTTF).

State governmnent has received Centre's approval for giving cash subsidy in lieu of kerosene quota through public distribution network, Food and Civil Supplies Minister Anil Deshmukh has said.

The Direct Transfer of Cash Subsidy (DTCS) scheme proposes to transfer the subsidy component of kerosene price to the beneficiary's account enabling him to buy it in open market.

The state government will spend a Rs 23 as premium to insure crops of 137 lakh farmers in the state, the state government's agricultural department said here on Friday. An official at the divisional agricultural office here said that a sum of Rs 3151 lakh has been already been provided as insurance premium for farmers whose crops will be insured during this year against any eventuality.

The programme known as 'Shetkari Janta Abghat Vima Yojana' has been continued by the state government this year as well.

1 Irrigation Plan Estimate Revised On I-Day Holiday.

The Centre has sanctioned a special irrigation scheme worth Rs 3,250 crore aimed to meet a new micro-irrigation target of 1,43,500 hectares in the V idarbha region still coping with reports of farm

AMRAVATI: The state government is diverting scarce water resources in the drought-prone Vidarbha region to private thermal power plants.

MUMBAI: The Vidarbha region, which lost many a farmer to agrarian crisis, is now staring at a bigger demon: Drought.

It is mostly caused by deliberate neglect and designed failure of the way we manage water and land

It’s drought time again. Nothing new in this announcement. Each year, first we have crippling droughts between December and June, and then devastating floods in the next few months. It’s a cycle of despair, which is more or less predictable. But this is not an inevitable cycle of nature we must live with.

The Maharashtra government has decided to launch a project with $85 million funding from the Asian Development Bank, which will augment the agriculture infrastructure in the State.