80,000 Farmers Participate Across Jammu & Kashmir, 800 Panchayats Covered Under Kisan Sampark Abhiyan

Enthusiastic farmers turned up in hordes across all the districts of Jammu and Kashmir with more than 80,000 attending three rounds of the orientation programme being held under Kisan Sampark Abhiyan, the Department of Information and Public Relations (DIPR), Jammu and Kashmir said in an official release on Thursday.

Nearly, 800 panchayats from across all the districts of the Union Territory have been covered, to date, under the Abhiyan, the release added.

According to the official release, a first-of-its-kind massive farmer’s orientation exercise is being undertaken by Agriculture Production Department at UT.

The ambitious target of reaching out to farmers in each and every Panchayat of the UT has been envisaged under the Kisan Sampark Abhiyan in the next 4 months. The exercise which commenced on April 24 is scheduled to conclude on August 31, 2023. The farmers outreach exercise has been planned under the recently launched Holistic Agriculture Development Programme (HADP), it said.

The official release further said that the Orientation programme is being organised simultaneously across all districts of the UT. The programme 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 these orientation programmes are officers and officials drawn from Agriculture, Animal/Sheep Husbandry, Horticulture, Sericulture and Fisheries Departments, who were trained beforehand during the 641 training sessions which were held across all districts during the months of January to April. An innovative tool for 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, it read.

“Using audio-visual aids in describing the schemes had a lasting and much more engaging, engrossing effect on the farmers. Besides, question-answer sessions after each screening session of videos are being held to clear the doubts of farmers. The farmers are also being provided with pamphlets of all the schemes in the three languages (Hindi, Urdu and English) in the shape of a booklet, which also contains information about the contact details of all the departments under the agriculture production department of the UT,” the release said.

The farmers are also being apprised of the mode of an application under these schemes using the KISAN SATHI- the IT Dashboard of the schemes developed by APD. A simple scan of the QR codes on the pamphlets takes the farmer to the KISAN SATHI Portal where he can register easily without visiting any office for applying under any of the schemes, it said.

Besides, PRI representatives were particularly enthusiastic about the hassle-free online application procedure devised by the Agriculture Production Department for undertaking any of the interventions under the 29 projects of HADP. A Baseline survey/Skill gap study of farmers has also been carried out simultaneously during the Kisan Sampark Abhiyan. The farmers’ data is being captured using IT Tools for a holistic assessment of the status of Agriculture and farmers in the UT, the official release said.

The farmers were also apprised about the Daksh Kisan, a Learning Management System (LMS) for skill development of 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. Again, a simple scan of the QR code at the back of the pamphlet takes the farmer to the Daksh Kisan Portal where he can register for free and undertake any skilling course of his/her liking, the release said.

The video lectures under the LMS are available in Kashmiri, Urdu, Dogri and Hindi and textual material is 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 skilful entrepreneurs. The successful farmers who clear the course shall be provided Certificates from SKUAST-J/K, it added.