93 Soil testing labs has been established in Nagaland (74 village level lab and 16 static lab and 3 mobile labs) since 2015, according to the State wise details data provided by the Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, Arjun Munda in a written reply in Lok Sabha on December 19. Since, 2014-15, a total of 8272 Soil Testing Labs (1068 Static Soil Testing Labs, 163 Mobile Soil Testing Labs, 6376 Mini Soil Testing Labs and 665 Village Level Soil Testing Labs) have been established across the country.
According to the Press Information Bureau (PIB), the Government of India is implementing Soil Health Management & Soil Health Card Schemes under the National Project on Soil Health & Fertility of National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture since the year 2014-15. Soil health card provides information to farmers on nutrient status of their soil along with recommendations on appropriate dosage of nutrients to be applied for improving soil health and its productivity. So far, 23.58 crore soil health cards have been distributed to farmers. These schemes have been merged as Soil Health & Fertility component of Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY). The guidelines for implementation of various activities have been issued to the farmers from time to time regarding the health of the soil under the scheme. Based on the recommendations on Soil Health Card (SHC), the trainings & demonstrations are conducted to create the awareness among the farmers for adopting the recommendations on judicious use of chemical fertilizers including secondary and micronutrients in conjunction with organic manures & bio-fertilizers. So far, 93781 farmer’s trainings, 6.45 lakh demonstrations, 7425 farmer’s melas/ campaigns on soil health card recommendations have been organized across the country.
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No financial assistance is provided to States/ Union Territories for hiring of man power, therefore, the data of employees working in Soil Testing Labs are not maintained by Government of India. A total amount of Rs.229.95 crore has been released to States/UTs for Soil Testing Labs under the scheme. Out of this, Rs.83.31 crore has been released to States/UTs for the past five years.
