Narendra Singh Tomar chairs 32nd meeting of Board of Directors of NHB

Tags: Summits National News

The 32nd meeting of the Board of Directors of the National Horticulture Board (NHB) was held in New Delhi on 14th December under the chairmanship of the Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare and Chairman of the Board, Narendra Singh Tomar. 

Important facts

• It was decided in the meeting that the process of approval of horticulture projects would be simplified for the farmers.

• Instead of two stages, now the process of approval of these projects will be completed in one go and it will be completely digital, as well as minimum documents will be required, due to which the farmers will not face any kind of trouble.

• It is noteworthy that many projects which used to be approved in a time period of about 6 to 8 months, will now be approved in just 45 days.

• The scheme framework, application filing system, documentation and approval process have been further simplified.

• The new simple design will come into effect from January 1, 2023. 

• This process will make the system more transparent and efficient, promote ease of doing business for the benefit of the farming community and generate more hi-tech commercial projects for NHB funding.

• Under NHB, a new vertical has been created to promote organic and natural farming, which will oversee planning, monitoring, area expansion-market promotion for production, value chain development and infrastructure development.

Swachh Plant  Programme

• The meeting also discussed in detail the new initiative of NHB- Swachh Plant  Programme.

• Under the programme the problem of availability of planting material to the farmers will be solved by spending Rs 2100 crore with the assistance of Asian Development Bank (ADB). 

• This will largely solve the problem of planting material, especially for many commercially important fruits. 

• This programme will go a long way in providing a major contribution to the much needed quality planting material for horticulture crops in the country.

National Horticulture Board (NHB)

• It was set up by the Government of India in 1984 as an Autonomous organisation under the administrative control of the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare.

• It is registered as a society under Societies Registration Act with its headquarters at Gurugram. 

• Its main objective is to improve the integrated development of the horticulture industry and help in maintaining and coordinating the production and processing of fruits and vegetables.