Go for DSR sowing, get ₹4K/ acre: Haryana govt to paddy growers

CHANDIGARH: Encouraged by the cultivators’ response to its incentive-driven policy of promoting direct-seeded rice (DSR) technique last year, Haryana agriculture department on Tuesday set one lakh acre as the target of sowing paddy with this water-saving alternative method in 12 leading paddy-growing districts.

The DSR method does not require more labour and squeezes water consumption and production cost.

The agriculture department will promote this rice production technique in 12 districts where groundwater is already alarmingly low.

And farmers opting for DSR technique will receive Rs 4,000 per acre incentive.

Last year, when this first-of-its-kind scheme was launched in eight districts, the agriculture department had set 2.5 acre limit to each farmer to grow paddy using DSR technique.

The target was to give incentive and support to 20,000 farmers to grow paddy under the watch of experts and exposure to one lakh farmers.

Total 17,485 acre against the target of 20,000 acre was covered under the DSR in 2021 and about Rs 9 crore was provided to the farmers who grew paddy using DSR, according to official records.

“This year, however, there will be no such limit and the farmers will be free to cultivate paddy by using the DSR techniques on more than 2.5 acre,” said Sumita Misra, additional chief secretary (ACS, agriculture).

In the absence of any statespecific scheme or budget to start this money-driven DSR policy last year, the agriculture department brought this policy under the purview of Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana, an umbrella scheme for development of agriculture that allows states to choose their own agriculture and allied sector development activities.

Yet another new feature of the scheme this year is that the agriculture department will provide 500 DSR sowing machines to farmers with Rs 40,000 subsidy per machine.

According to Sumita Misra (ACS, agriculture), awareness training programmes are being organised to educate farmers about the benefits of DSR technology.

She said at least 500 training programmes will be held and that every activity being undertaken in this initiative is being monitored closely.

The department has advised the peasants to start DSR sowing (for coarse grain dwarf varieties) from May 25 and complete it by June 15.

This year, the target is to have Dsr-cultivated paddy fields spread across 7,000 acre in Ambala, 6,000 acre each in Yamunanagar, Panipat, and Sonepat, 10,000 acre each in Karnal and Kurukshetra, 11,000 acre each in Kaithal and Jind, 9,000 acre in Fatehabad, 8,000 acre each in Sirsa, Hisar, and Rohtak districts.

Advantages and disadvantages

Officials say the DSR is gaining ground because of its low-input demand and advantages like it saves labour, requires less water, early crop maturity, and low production cost. A reasonably good crop yield in DSR can be obtained by proper sowing time, proper weed and water management.

However, there are also challenges such as high weed growth, increase in soil borne pathogens, nutrient disorders, poor crop establishment, etc.

“Now, the latest technology for such problems is available. Thus, by overcoming these constraints DSR can prove to be a promising, technically and economically feasible alternative to transplanted rice,” said an official who is monitoring the scheme, adding in the upcoming paddy season the department will promote the DSR technology as a major thrust area covering at least one lakh acre.