NEW DELHI: The government has drawn up a plan to provide “customised fertilisers” based on the quality of Soil to farmers after nearly completing the distribution of soil health cards (SHC) across the country under the first cycle of the drive. Eighteen ‘customised fertiliser’ grades for rice, maize, sugarcane and potato, based on soil health card data, have been identified for 126 districts across five states — Uttar Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra.
The aim is to cut down on input costs and raise productivity. “It is in the final stage of approval, awaiting the law ministry’s vetting. A notification in this regard is expected to be issued soon,” said a government source. The concept of ‘customised fertilisers’ is centred on plant nutrition, based on the quality of soil. The objective is to promote site-specific nutrient management to achieve maximum fertiliser-use efficiency in a cost effective manner.
It includes a combination of nutrients based on soil testing and crop requirement “Since we now have SHCs, carrying details of the nutrient status of the soils, for almost all farm holdings, areaspecific customised fertilisers will help farmers reduce their input cost and increase productivity,” said an official. Government sources said three fertiliser manufacturers, including Nagarjuna and Indo-Gulf Fertilisers, had been identified for supplying ‘customised fertilisers’ in the 126 districts.
They said the sale of ‘customised fertilisers’ and the ongoing preparation of ‘district soil nutrient maps’ by the Hyderabad-based National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) would be two significant milestones linked to the SHC scheme this year. The SHCsare being linked with farmers’ Aadhaar in the ongoing second cycle (2017-19) of the scheme, which had begun in May last year.
“This is done to facilitate the seeding of the fertiliser direct benefit transfer (DBT) with the SHC portal. This is still in pilot mode in 16 districts. The SHC portal has already been linked with the Integrated Fertiliser Management System (iFMS) for this purpose,”said an official. The agriculture ministry has, meanwhile, decided to go ahead with GPS-based soil sample collection for the second cycle so that the test data cannot be fudged and a comparison can be made on the progress between the first and the second cycles.

The ministry had last month launched a mobile app that will benefit field-level workers as it will automatically capture GIS coordinates (exact geographical location) while registering sample details at the time of soil sample collection. This app works like other geotagging apps and contains farmers’ details including Aadhaar and crop details.

Source : timesofindia