SHIMLA: Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur at the Governing Council meeting of NITI Aayog in New Delhi today said over 31,584 orchardists of the state were covered under state sponsored schemes whereas 4.15 lakh orchardists were benefitted under centrally sponsored schemes during the last four and half years.
Chief Minister addressed the rising concern of the Central Government over the ongoing apple farmers’ agitation in Himachal Pradesh, during the council meeting, which was presided over by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Chief Minister said the state government is implementing Rs. 1010 crore Himachal Pradesh Crop Diversification Scheme in all the districts.
The budget provision has been made for promoting mushroom farming especially Shitake and Dhingree varieties, he said.
He informed that in order to double the income of farmers, 3590 gram panchayats have been covered under "Prakritik Kheti Khushal Kisan Yojna".
The farmers had saved about 9.75 crores by switching over to natural manure instead of chemical fertilizers, he added.
Thakur said 10 points of sale were set up across the state besides Delhi and Chandigarh for selling natural farming produce.
He said efforts are afoot to increase production of pulses, oilseeds and other agriculture produce to achieve self-sufficiency with the help of advanced technology.
Talking about school education, an issue being raised by AAP in Himachal, Jai Ram Thakur urged Prime Minister to allocate 5 TV channels to Himachal Pradesh out of total 200 channels under recently announced Swayam Prabha which will telecast high quality educational programmes.
He said gross enrollment ratio of primary, middle and high schools in the state is hundred percent whereas it is 85.6 percent in case of senior secondary schools.
He further added that the ratio goes up to 98.8 percent if technical institutions are added to the senior secondary level.
He said that girl children of the state were being provided education and free residential facility besides skill education in 14 Kasturba Gandhi Girls Schools.
He said that the education database is being digitized in the state and capacity building of teachers is being done for preparing high quality study material in digital mode.
Chief Minister said the average of State’s gross enrollment ratio in higher education is 40.8 percent against the national average of 27.1 percent.
He said that the amount of scholarships under various categories and merit scholarships of girls and boys has also been increased.
He said that efforts were being made to impart employment oriented education and placement cells have been set up.
Drone policy has been framed by the government and students were being imparted Drone training to enable the application of modern technology in the state.
