District Administration received appreciation from Central Government on the recently launched Project ‘Harit Dhar’. The project includes maintenance of water bodies and promoting vegetable farming.

Ashutosh A.T Pednekar, District Collector, Udaipur, informed that as part of Project ‘Harit Dhar’, 7500 farmers are expected to benefit. The farmers would be provided with a complete farming kit for 3 years. Eligibility criteria for the farmers is to have sufficient provision of water supply.

Pednekar added that 7500 acre of land is included as part of the project translating to 1 acre per farmer. Each farmer, apart from farming kit, will also be provided with a Harit Card. The farming kit includes seeds of various vegetables and fertilizers. Seeds of Tomato, Cabbage, Brinjal and Cauliflower will be provided. Seeds of spices like Ginger and Turmeric may also be provided on demand.

Pednekar detailed that every year a new batch of farmers will be included. The total number of farmers over the project duration would be more than 20,000. The objective behind Harit Dhar is to make farmers of district financially stable.

Project is being funded from the NAREGA scheme of central government. An approval has been taken from government to use the funds towards farming. This is the first time that a provision has been made for any such project. The project will be implemented nationwide if satisfactory results are received.

Results of the project can be seen by end of August this year. Past and present income of the documented farmers would help in making this assessment.

Project Harit Dhar, apart from benefiting farmers, will also concentrate on maintenance of water bodies across district. In total, 145 water bodies are included in the project. Out of these,110 are under Panchayats while 35 are under irrigation department.