Agriculture Production Department to give online training to farmers under HADP

Online quizzes, application processing, business incubation to be part of same system

ACS reviews implementation, sets deadline for each component of mission

JAMMU, February 28: The Agriculture Production Department has planned to implement the Holistic Agriculture Development Plan (HADP) with a mission for transformative and holistic development of agriculture and allied sectors across Jammu & Kashmir.

To this end, Additional Chief Secretary (ACS), Agriculture Production, Atal Dulloo, chaired a comprehensive review meeting at Civil Secretariat here today.

During the meeting, ACS took an exhaustive review of the online Learning Management System for skill programs for entrepreneurship development under HADP. He reviewed the development, monitoring and implementation of the ongoing scheme while setting deadlines for completion of each component of the program.

Dulloo emphasised the importance of delivering course content in the easiest way possible, calling for the addition of voice overs to expert lectures, which would help convey information more clearly to the learners.

The HADP identifies 29 projects aiming at complete transformation of agriculture in Jammu & Kashmir by reaching out to 13 lakh farmer households and 2.9 lakh marginal farmers. Within the Learning Management System, a total of 43 courses across 29 different programs are being planned and developed. These courses will comprise of 10 lectures each delivered in various local languages such as Dogri and Kashmiri, alongside Hindi and Urdu.

To facilitate the initiative, the Agriculture Production Department is meticulously planning, making training schedules, conducting orientation exercises and preparing material for information dissemination. The department, in association with various agencies like SKUAST, is set to launch an online portal where any farmer can learn more about a project and respective schemes or activities. Once an application is submitted, it would be forwarded for scrutiny and approval by the appropriate office. The OTP based login facilitates easy enrollment.

Post-learning stage, the courses involve practical training and business incubation and hand-holding for running business enterprises in subsequent stages and as per the applicant’s requirements. NICCI (NIC Chat Interface), a chatbot of the National Informatics Centre (NIC), will also be available on the portal for assisting farmers with their queries.

The review meeting was attended by Commissioner Secretary IT, Prerna Puri, Directors of Agriculture, Horticulture, Sheep Husbandry, and other allied departments from both provinces, in person as well as virtually.