6 Crore Soil Health Cards distributed in two years: Govt

The government has distributed only 6 crore cards and remaining cards are under printing.

New Delhi, March 28: Lagging much behind the target of distributing 14 crore soil cards, Minister of State for Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Parshottam Rupala informed the Lok Sabha on Tuesday that the government has distributed only 6 crore cards and remaining cards are under printing.

Adequate funds have been released to all States, funds amounting to Rs 23.89 crore, Rs 96.44 crore and Rs 126.47 crore have been released during 2014-15, 2015-16 and 2016-17 respectively under the scheme. The delay in implementing the scheme is likely to aggravate the problem the agrarian crisis in the rural India. Various government data suggests that rising cost of inputs in agriculture has emerged to be one of the main reason behind farmer suicides. According to an estimate, around 2 lakh farmers have committed suicides in last two decades.

The Government has introduced Soil Health Card (SHC) Scheme with an aim to provide soil health cards to all farm holdings across the country once in a cycle of two years. Uniform norms of 10 hectares for rainfed areas and 2.5 hectare for irrigated areas constitute the grid for soil sample collection. Uniform norms of testing 12 parameters is followed namely major nutrients (N, P, K), secondary nutrients (S), micro-nutrients (Fe, Zn, Cu, Mn & B) and others (pH, EC & OC). The State Government through its Department of Agriculture is nodal agency to issue soil health card to farmers.