Board of Directors of National Horticulture Board Meets for the 32nd Time Under the Leadership of Union Agriculture Minister Shri Tomar

The 32nd meeting of National horticulture Board (NHB) was held in New Delhi today under the chairmanship of Shri Narendra Singh Tomar, the chairman of the board & the Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Government assistance. It was decided that farmers will benefit from a streamlined approval procedure for horticulture projects. The approval process will now be completed in one step rather than in two, it will be entirely digital, and only a small number of documents will be required, so farmers won’t have any issues. Fundamentally, many tasks which used to be supported in a time span of around 6 to 8 months will currently be endorsed in only 45 days.

The scheme design, application filing system, documentation, and approval procedure have all been further simplified as a follow-up to this process. The new, straightforward design will take effect on January 1, 2023. Shri Tomar, expressed the hope that this procedure will increase the number of high-tech commercial projects eligible for NHB funding, promote Ease of Doing Business for the benefit of farmers, and make the system more transparent and effective. NHB has also taken the initiative to promote convergence between its credit-linked subsidy schemes and the Agriculture Infrastructure Fund (AIF) scheme in the new design.

The NHB’s new initiative, the Swachh Plant Programme, was also discussed in detail at the meeting. Under this program, the problem of farmers not having access to planting materials will be solved by spending Rs 2100 crore with the help of the Asian Development Bank (ADB). This will mostly solve the issue of planting material, especially for many fruits that are important to the commercial market. This program will significantly contribute to the supply of high-quality planting material for horticultural crops in the country, which is desperately needed.

Under NHB, a new vertical for organic and natural farming promotion has been established. This vertical will oversee all aspects of the organic sector, including planning, monitoring, area expansion-production, market promotion for the development of the value chain, and infrastructure development. The progress of the Board’s cluster development program was also discussed at this meeting, and it was decided that the application approval process will be completed as soon as possible. In today’s meeting, the decisions made at the previous meeting of the Board of Directors were approved.

During the meeting, suggestions were presented by government and non-government members, as well as Ministers of State for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Shri Kailash Choudhary and Sushri Shobha Karandlaje, Secretary Manoj Ahuja, Additional Secretary Abhilaksh Likhi, and Joint Secretary Shri Priyaranjan.