Source:: Chanakyaiasacademy:: Soil Health Card

INTRODUCTION:

‘Soil Health Card’ Scheme has been introduced to assist State Governments to issue soil health cards to all farmers in the country. It is a Government of India’s scheme promoted by the Department of Agriculture & Co-operation under the Ministry of Agriculture. It will be implemented through the Department of Agriculture of all the State and Union Territory Governments. A SHC is meant to give each farmer soil nutrient status of his holding and advice him on the dosage of fertilizers and also the needed soil amendments, that he should apply to maintain soil health in the long run. It is likely to develop an application software for the States for online generation of soil health cards and fertilizer recommendations. Dissemination of soil testing results through SMSs will be enabled.

Agriculture since ages is the mainstay of the Indian population. The story of Indian agriculture has been a spectacular one, with a global impact for its multi-functional success in generating employment, livelihood, food, nutritional and ecological security. Agriculture and allied activities contribute about 30 per cent to the gross domestic product of India. The green revolution had heralded the first round of changes. India is the second largest producer of wheat, rice, sugar, groundnut as also in production of cash crops like coffee, coconut and tea.

Aim and Objectives:

• To issue soil health cards every 3 years, to all farmers of the country, so as to provide a basis to address nutrient deficiencies in fertilization practices.
• To strengthen functioning of Soil Testing Laboratories (STLs) through capacity building, involvement of agriculture students and effective linkage with Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) / State Agricultural Universities (SAUs).
• To diagnose soil fertility related constraints with standardized procedures for sampling uniformly across states and analysis and design taluqa / block level fertilizer recommendations in various district.
• To develop and promote soil test based nutrient management in the districts for enhancing nutrient use efficiency.
• To build capacities of district and state level staff and of progressive farmers for promotion of nutrient management practices.

Steps:

National Informatics Center (NIC) has developed a web portal (www.soilhealth.dac.gov.in) for generation of uniform soil health card and fertilizer recommendation, which has four modules:

• Registration of Soil Samples.
• Testing of Samples in Soil Testing laboratory.
• Fertilizer recommendation based on Soil Test Crop Response (STCR) equations.
• MIS Reports.

The official sources in the Agriculture ministry say that the Soil Health Card portal aims to generate and issue Soil Health Cards based on either Soil Test-Crop Response (STCR) formulae developed by ICAR or General Fertilizer Recommendations provided by state Governments.

Funding:

The scheme has been approved for implementation during 12th Plan with an outlay of Rs.568.54 crore. For the current year (2015-16) an allocation of Rs.96.46 crore (GOI share) has been made. The scheme will be implemented on 50:50 sharing pattern between GOI and State Governments.

In order to mobilize manpower and soil test infrastructure, the DAC is pooling the resources of ICAR and also that of State Governments. Thus all ICAR institutions including KVKs, State Government laboratories and State Agriculture Universities will be participating in this important national programme. It is also proposed to facilitate participation by the students of science colleges and chemistry departments of the general universities under the banner of ‘earn while you learn’.

Progress:

As of July 2015, only 34 lakh Soil Health Cards (SHC) were issued to farmers as against a target of 84 lakh for the year 2015 16. Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Kerala, Mizoram, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand and West Bengal were among the states which had not issued a single SHC under the scheme by then. The number grew up to 1.12 crore by February 2016. As of February 2016, against the target of 104 lakh soil samples, States reported a collection of 81 lakh soil samples and tested 52 lakh samples.

Status of Soil Health Card Scheme as on 29.03.2016
Sl. No.	State	Target No of Samples 2015-16	No. of Samples Collected	No. of Samples Tested	No. of SHCs Issued
I.	SOUTH ZONE
1	Andhra Pr.	400000	497129	414259	1635895
2	Karnataka	533000	260598	98821	32776
3	Kerala	63800	64893	49278	43916
4	Tamil Nadu	426000	422662	420994	1883600
5	Telangana	500035	500035	456457	1199343
II.	WEST ZONE
6	Gujarat	1366000	1366000	1366000	1366000
7	Madhya Pr.	805000	502122	368949	907980
8	Maharashtra	911000	864585	730472	2553821
9	Rajasthan	1153000	892360	385057	1014969
10	Chhattisgarh	292588	272664	157222	652211
11	Goa	25000	21824	19585	19585
III.	NORTH ZONE
12	Haryana	400000	248000	70564	49000
13	Punjab	176000	171267	113574	295292
14	Uttarakhand	67607	50817	34621	157190
15	Uttar Pr.	1800000	1455902	568895	1015007
16	Himachal Pr.	69635	67467	51087	127762
17	J & K	55106	37787	20781	30905
IV.	EAST ZONE
18	Bihar	484000	470882	305970	1007839
19	Jharkhand	47850	42545	27445	48960
20	Odisha	310000	309580	201355	547795
21	West Bengal	310000	308000	71000	80650
V.	NE ZONE
22	Arunachal Pr.	17100	10132	8063	652
23	Assam	180000	46296	13426	11263
24	Manipur	11000	3198	2015	1478
25	Meghalaya	22000	24062	16395	18783
26	Mizoram	7666	5280	3250	1550
27	Nagaland	11141	12860	11900	11900
28	Sikkim	13217	13217	13217	27000
29	Tripura	10912	10246	8260	9260
	TOTAL	10468657	8952410	6008912	14752382