Haryana to construct silos with capacity of 6 lakh tonnes

Haryana on Thursday announced construction of silos having a capacity of six lakh metric tonnes under the Warehouse Infrastructure Fund of the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) for providing sufficient storage facilities for food grains.

For this, a Rs 200-crore proposal would be sent to NABARD, a government statement said.

A decision in this regard was taken at a meeting presided over by Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar here to review the progress of the projects being undertaken with the assistance of NABARD.

Khattar said the state has purchased several crops under the minimum support price. These included wheat, rice, bajra, sarson (mustard) and sunflower.

The Chief Minister directed officials that priority for funding under NABARD should be given to those projects that are related to water conservation and irrigation.

The government recently launched the "Jal Hi Jeevan Hai" scheme to encourage the farmers to shift from the water guzzling crops like paddy and adopt alternative crops such as maize which require comparatively less water.

The scheme has got a good response from the farmers as the area under maize sowing has reached 50,000 acres in the state.

The Chief Minister directed the Irrigation and Water Resources Department to explore the possibilities of taking up the project for the rejuvenation and remodelling of 14,000 rural ponds under a NABARD scheme. IANS