Jammu- Over 24,000 farmers attended the orientation programme under Kisan Sampark Abhiyan during the first 3-day session held across 264 venues in Jammu and Kashmir.
Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha on Wednesday kick-started a 4-month long Abhiyan in 3,565 panchayats to educate farmers on various issues, including business management, entrepreneurship and government schemes.
Kisan Sampark Abhiyan of the Agriculture Production Department is aimed at the overall welfare of farmers across the Union Territory.
“There has been huge enthusiasm from the farming community in the past three days. Over 24,000 farmers attended the orientation programme under Abhiyan, the first 3-day session held across 264 venues of the Union Territory, Additional chief secretary Atal Dulloo told reporters here.
The exercise which commenced on 24th April will conclude on 31st August, 2023. This ambitious farmers’ outreach program has been planned under the recently launched holistice agriculture development program (HADP), he said.
Dulloo said that the orientation programme, which is being organised simultaneously across all districts of the UT, has been designed to be conducted on the first three days of every week.
“An exhaustive district specific calendar has been issued by the government in this regard. The resource persons for the orientations would be the officers and officials drawn from agriculture, animal, sheep husbandry, horticulture, sericulture and fisheries departments, who have been trained beforehand during the 641 training sessions which were held across all districts during the months of January to April”, he said.
ACS said that an innovative tool of describing the different schemes and programmes using short films has been put in place. “A total of 49 videos of schemes under HADP and other centrally sponsored schemes will be shown to the farmers across the venues in J&K,” he added.
Besides, a question-answer session after each screening session of videos was held to clear the doubts of farmers. The farmers were also provided with pamphlets on all the schemes in three languages (Hindi, Urdu and English), which also contained the information about the contact details of all the departments under the agriculture production department of the UT.
He said that the farmers were also informed about the mode of application under these schemes using the Kisan Sathi — the IT dashboard of the schemes developed by APD. By scanning the QR codes on the pamphlets farmers can visit the Kisan Sathi portal where they can register easily and apply for benefits under any of the schemes.
The farmers were also apprised of Daksh Kisan- a learning management system (LMS) for skill development of the farmers.
“A first of its kind in the country, Daksh Kisan has been developed by the Agriculture Production Department, where 118 skilling courses as per the agro-climatic zones of the J&K UT are available for free to the farmers,” he said.
The video lectures under the LMS are available in Kashmiri, Urdu, Dogri and Hindi and text material is also available in Hindi, Urdu and English.
Besides, specialised modules on business development and financial management have also been included to ensure that the farmers are not merely trained but become a skilful entrepreneur, he said.
“The successful farmers who clear the course shall be provided certificates by the university,” he added. (PTI)
