During the last one year, the subsidy has been released to 357 beneficiaries while 921 new projects have been approved.
National Horticulture Board (NHB), an autonomous organisation under the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare has cleared a record 1278 subsidy applications for integrated development of hi-tech commercial horticulture in the country including promotion of post-harvest and cold chain infrastructure during the last year which were pending since long.
Under the leadership of Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare and President of the Board Narendra Singh Tomar, the team NHB has worked in a campaign mode to complete this commendable task. Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare and the chairman of the Managing Committee Shri Sanjay Agarwal kept a regular watch on the progress and continuously guided the officials of NHB. Under the direct supervision of the Ministry, the NHB has also taken a lot of steps for ease of doing business by simplification of scheme guidelines, documentation and processing process of new applications. During the last one year, the subsidy has been released to 357 beneficiaries while 921 new projects have been approved.
NHB has also facilitated the convergence of its back-ended capital investment subsidy schemes with the Agri Infrastructure Fund Scheme of the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare to encourage farmers and entrepreneurs to take advantage of subvention of 3 per cent interest on the loan with credit guarantee coverage for a loan up to Rs 2.00 crores for setting up post-harvest and cold chain infrastructure in the horticulture sector.
With the financial support of NHB, an additional area of 2210 acres under hi-tech commercial horticulture, both in open and protected cultivation has been brought under horticulture. Also, an additional cold storage capacity of 1.15 lakh MT has been created under the Cold Storage Scheme of NHB.
