The subsidy is being provided to the farmers under Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) scheme. SAFAL App (Simplified Application for Agricultural Loans) has been launched since 2022-23 to make this process easy. Through this portal, the farmers can apply for agricultural loans from banks and various lending institutions and purchase the machinery. In the last four years, 1,70,296 pieces of agricultural machinery/equipment have been given to farmers of Odisha with subsidy amount of Rs.1005.83 crore. He put emphasis on popularization of small equipment, especially women-friendly equipment.

The fair will be organized between October and December. This year, the government has extended the farm machinery mela up to sub-division level.

Farm Machinery is an important intervention to make agriculture more time bound, reduce drudgery and reduce cost of cultivation. Agricultural mechanization is one of the major interventions to increase agricultural productivity, food grain production, timely farming and depleting natural resources and farm investment.  The financial assistance in shape of subsidy is being provided to popularize Farm Mechanization in the state.

Major machinery such as tractors, power tillers, combine harvesters, reapers, rotavators, rice transplanters, multi-grain axial flow threshers, power weeder and mini rice mills, rubber roll Sheller, mini oil mill, Rice Puffing Machine, Rice flattening Machine, pulverisers etc have been supplied to the farmers. For the FY-2023-24 the target for supply of Farm Machineries is 70,000 nos with a subsidy provision for 450 crore. Till 05.09.2023 subsidy amount of Rs.153 crores has been disbursed towards supply of 24953 no of farm machineries to the farmers.

Due to continuous  efforts in farm mechanization, the farm power input of Odisha has increased from a low of 0.62 kilowatts per hectare in 2000-01 to 2.32 kilowatts per hectare in 2022-23. Last year, district-level mela on farm machinery were organized in all 30 districts to facilitate the sale showcase of new technologically advanced machineries to the farmers of the state.

Among others, Agriculture and Food Production Director Prema Chandra Choudhary, Agriculture Department Chief Engineer and other senior officers and large number of Farm Machine Manufacturers and dealers attended the meeting.

The protestors, led by Chhatra Congress president Yaseer Nawaz raised slogans against the government and demanded immediate steps to bring down the prices of vegetables which have gone beyond affordability of common man.

Students Congress Activists Demonstrate Against Vegetable Prices Near Minister House – YouTube

During their sit-in, the activists of the students wing of the Congress sold vegetables at half the price of the market rate. “Though the vegetable prices have been constantly increasing for the last few days, the government has failed to take any steps to ease the burden of the consumers,” they said.

“We want to draw the attention of the government towards the plight of the people and the farmers. The state doesn’t have adequate cold storage facilities. At least 82 cold stores across the state have become defunct,” Nawaz said.

“It is high time the government should take steps to ensure adequate cold-storages to preserve the vegetables produced by our farmers so that we would not depend on other states. Besides, a robust distribution system for farm produce should be ensured,” he added.