Question : Small Farm Equipment

(a) the measures taken by the Government to make the small farm equipment and machineries available to small and marginal farmers, at reasonable prices, year-wise since 2014;

(b) the details of funds allocated to promote mechanization in agriculture since 2014, State and year-wise;

(c) whether the Indian farmers are facing problems due to poor quality of power tillers imported from China;

(d) if so, the details thereof and the measures taken to counter this issue; and

(e) whether the Government has defined norms for testing the durability and checking the quality of power tillers and if so, the details thereof and if not, the reasons therefor?

MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND FARMERS WELFARE

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(a) & (b): For promotion of agricultural mechanization in the country, a Sub- Mission on Agricultural Mechanization (SMAM) scheme is being implemented through State Governments w.e.f. 2014-15 with the following objectives.

(i) Increasing the reach of farm mechanization to small and marginal farmers and to the regions where availability of farm power is low;
(ii) Promoting ‘Custom Hiring Centres’ to offset the adverse economies of scale arising due to small landholding and high cost of individual ownership;
(iii) Creating hubs for hi-tech & high value farm equipments;

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(iv) Creating awareness among stakeholders through demonstration and capacity building activities;
(v) Ensuring performance testing and certification at designated testing centers located all over the country.

Under SMAM subsidy to the tune of 25 to 50 % for procurement of agricultural machinery is being provided.

Government of India , Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare does not control the prices of agricultural machinery and equipments. However , State Governments are negotiating the price with Agricultural machinery manufactures before them to empanel so as to get a reasonable price to farmers. The Government has also launched a software on DBT for providing online subsidy on Agricultural Machinery wherein the manufacturers has to declare the prices of their products which can be visible to buyer and accordingly the farmer can make his own choice of purchase.

The details of funds released under SMAM and under a new Central Sector Scheme which is introduced during 2018-19 on ‘Promotion of Agricultural Mechanization for In-Situ Management of Crop Residue in the States of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and NCT of Delhi’ scheme to promote mechanization in agriculture, State and year-wise is enclosed as Annexure -1.

(c) to (e): Under SMAM and other schemes of Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare assistance subsidy is provided for procurement of Power Tiller to the farmers. To assess the quality of Power Tillers before these are supplied to farmers under subsidy programme , for empanelment of manufacturer and suppliers of Power Tillers, testing and confirmation of Minimum Performance Standards (MPS) as per IS : 9935 of all models of Power Tillers is pre-requisite . To make the testing norms of Power Tillers more stringent, torture test, material test, testing in different soil conditions, elimination of repeat & supplementary test have been introduced. Besides testing, all the State Governments and Power Tiller Manufacturers have been advised to ensure to observe the measures as per Annexure – 2.