Srinagar: To review the progress made under National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture (NMSA), a meeting of the empowered Committee was held at SKUAST-K Shalimar which was presided over by Principal Secretary Agriculture Agricultural Production Department, Sandeep Kumar Nayak.
Vice Chancellor SKUAST-K, Nazir Ahmad, Vice Chancellor SKUAST-J, Dr. P.K. Sharma, Director Agriculture Kashmir, Syed Altaf Aijaz Andrabi, Director Agriculture Jammu, H.K. Razdan, representative of Director Horticulture and other concerned officers attended the meeting.
Director Agriculture Kashmir, who is also Mission Director for NMSA, gave a detailed presentation of action plan and various issues, prospects under NMSA. He highlighted the ongoing, as well as newly proposed activities/ programs related to sustainable agriculture with a special emphasis on soil and Water conservation, water use efficacy, Soil Health Management and Rain, fed Area Development.
The meeting was informed that since the sustainable Agricultural productivity depends on quality and availability of natural resources like soil and water, therefore appropriate location-specific measures like establishment of Mobile Soil Testing Laboratories, Water Harvesting Technology etc. need to be taken into consideration.
Director Agriculture also highlighted the need of intergraded/ composite farming system to make agriculture more sustainable productive and climate resilient.
Speaking on the occasion, the Principal Secretary took a detailed review of various components of National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture. During the meeting, Committee sanctioned two Mobile Soil Testing Laboratories for central Kashmir, each for Leh, Kargil, Rajouri, and Poonch districts.
Meanwhile, the various proposals submitted by the Mission Director to the Committee were agreed upon in principle. Sanction was accorded to raise the allocation under rain fed area development program from Rs. 1.10 crore to Rs 3 crore, besides allocating funds under different components of NMSA.
