LUCKNOW: To give an impetus to developing rural infrastructure, NABARD has sanctioned a loan of Rs 808 crore to the government of Uttar Pradesh for augmenting irrigation facilities to small and mar

JAIPUR: The national agriculture and rural development board (NABARD) is set to decide on the soft loans proposed by the public works department (PWD) of the state government on Wednesday. The department has forwarded projects worth Rs 1,562 crore to NABARD for refurbishing roads in the state.

NABARD chairman Prakash Bakshi will be on his two day visit to Jaipur starting from Tuesday and is scheduled to meet chief minister Ashok Gehlot and PWD department officials.

Water scarcity may be a thing of the past in nearly 20 villages around Nallatur in Tiruvallur district. As part of its efforts to recharge depleting groundwater resources, the Water Resources Department (WRD) has proposed to construct another check-dam in Nallatur across the Kosasthalaiyar River.

The check-dam, which would store water that drains into the sea, would also help irrigation in the surrounding areas. The proposed facility would supply water to an additional 225 hectares of lands.

Outrage has given way to expectancy in West Singhbhum, Jharkhand, where people are now waiting for the benefits that will come to them from a multipurpose project on the Subarnarekha, a venture tha

GUWAHATI, June 1: The Assam Government often claims that it has achieved a lot in the field of agricultural development in the State.

An ambitious plan for poverty eradication is set to benefit thousands of below poverty line households in Bharatpur and make the district poverty-free by 2015. Through a well-planned strategy for self and wage employment generation, the plan would benefit 11,000 BPL families of the total of 49,394 such households in the district during the current financial year.

According to the figures compiled by the Lupin Human Welfare and Research Foundation, which has formulated the poverty eradication plan, the total rural population in the nine blocks of Bharatpur district is 20.54 lakh, which includes the BPL population of 2.46 lakh.

Plans are afoot to increase the production of inland fish in the State to three lakh tonnes a year.

Presently, of the total 5.97 lakh tonnes of fish production in Tamil Nadu, inland fish production is only 1.72 lakh tonnes and marine fisheries is 4.25 lakh tonnes. To make available more fish seeds and advanced fingerlings from 7 cm to 10 cm stage, the capacity of fish hatcheries and fish-rearing centres across the State is being enhanced and additional infrastructure created. Catla, Rohu, Mrigal varieties of Indian major carp (kendai meen) and common carp are bred and reared at these centres.

KOLKATA, 17 MAY: Chief minister Mamata Banerjee today announced an increase in government subsidy from 20 per cent to 30 per cent to the Self Help Groups for various poverty alleviation projects wh

The State government, specifically the Public Works Department (PWD), has no clue as to what the farmers did with Rs.75 crore of Central funding meant for creating artificial recharge systems (ARS) in their agricultural fields.

The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) report has found that only 21,214 out of 2.93 lakh farmers utilised the money to construct ARS, which defeated the objective, improving groundwater using rainwater run-off from their own agricultural fields.

Speaking about the need to increase food production to feed the growing population, India’s representative from the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), Dr Peter Kenmore, on Monday said that this has to be done in a sustainable manner and by crop intensification.

He was delivering the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development’s (Nabard) 30th anniversary lecture on “Future of Global Agriculture: Challenges and Opportunities for India”.