Area under direct seeding of rice up 44%, says Gurmeet Singh Khudian
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, August 4
Agriculture Minister Gurmeet Singh Khudian today said there had been a 44 per cent increase in the area dedicated to direct seeding of rice (DSR) compared to the last year.
The acreage sown using the water-conserving DSR technique has reached 2.48 lakh acres, up from 1.72 lakh acres during the kharif season in 2023. He said Muktsar district topped the state as 78,468 acres had been sown using the DSR method followed by Fazilka (75,824 acres), Amritsar (17,913 acres), Ferozepur (17,644 acres) and Bathinda (12,760 acres).
He said the Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann-led government had been offering Rs 1,500 per acre as financial assistance to motivate farmers to go for the DSR method over traditional paddy transplanting.
The minister added that Rs 20.33 crore had been disbursed to 17,116 farmers to support the adoption of DSR technique during 2023-24. The state government has earmarked Rs 50 crore to incentivise farmers during 2024-25.
Khudian added that 24,120 farmers had registered 2.48 lakh acres on the DSR portal so far.
“The Agriculture Department’s field officials are verifying the farmers and their DSR-registered land. Once the verification is complete, the incentive amount will be directly credited to their accounts through DBT,” added the minister.
