Centre’s vegetable clusters scheme for Ludhiana

Chandigarh, December 28
Ludhiana will be the only city in Punjab to be included in the ambitious agriculture development scheme — Vegetable Initiative for Urban Clusters — announced by the Centre.

The scheme, which envisages the development of vegetable clusters for ensuring supply of good quality vegetables to any city having a population of one million and above, will also help in increasing vegetable production in peripheral areas.

In Punjab, Sangrur, Jalandhar, Fatehgarh Sahib and Patiala to ensure regular supply of vegetables to Ludhiana city and this would also increase production in these districts.

The state government has already received 50 per cent of the grant (Rs 6 crore), and is now in the process of forming farmer groups in the peripheral districts of Ludhiana.

Dr Lajwinder Singh Brar, Director, Horticulture, said that the scheme had been initiated under the aegis of Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana. "The scheme covers all aspects relating to vegetable production, from production and supply of planting material to marketing up to the retail level, formation of farmer groups, their linkage to aggregators/markets besides training and capacity building of vegetable growers in the identified clusters," Brar said.

"As a part of this scheme, we will be first forming self-help groups of farmers, named the Farmer Interest Groups and each group will grow vegetables on 20 hectares of land. These groups in one geographical location will be clustered as Farmer Producers' Organisation, which will be registered under the Societies Act. These organisations will directly market their produce to retailers with the help of a marketing aggregator, who will ensure that the farmers get a good price for their produce, and the role of middlemen will be minimised," he added.

Brar said that the department was in the final stage of identifying an NGO that would act as the market aggregator for vegetable producers’ organisations.

The total production of vegetables in Punjab is 36.45 lakh tonnes, with average yield of 19,344 kgs per hectare. So far, the total area on which vegetable crops are grown in the stare is estimated at 1.88 lakh hectares.

Brar said that the scheme would not only help in increasing the total vegetable production in the areas surrounding Ludhiana, but also help the farmers to set up state-of-art storage facilities in vegetable producing areas and buy refrigerated vans for transporting their produce.