In a major move aimed at building up a single national database on soil health across the states, the government of India has launched Soil Health Card portal in New Delhi on Wednesday. Radha Mohan Singh, Union Agriculture Minister launched it in presence of Ministers of States for Agriculture, Dr. Sanjeev Kumar Balyan and Shri Mohanbhai Kalyanjibhai Kundariya.
Following words with the deeds the Modi govt’s new soil-testing portal has been developed for registration of soil samples, recording test results of soil samples and generation of Soil Health Card (SHC) along with Fertilizer Recommendations.
Farmers’ cooperative IFFCO has also been engaged in these efforts in the past but the sheer range of govt operation is too huge for any non-governmental organization to match.
This portal’s address is www.soilhealth.dac.gov.in
It promotes uniform adoptions of codes for e.g. Census Codes for locations. The system has sample tracking feature and will provide alerts to farmers about sample registration and generation of Soil Health Card through SMS and Email.
Soil Health Card portal aims to generate and issue Soil Health Cards based on either Soil Test-Crop Response (STCR) formulae developed by ICAR or General Fertilizer Recommendations provided by State Governments.
Based on test results, these recommendations will be calculated automatically by the system. Micronutrients suggestions will also be provided by the system. The System envisages building up a single national database on soil health for future use in research and planning.
The scheme has been approved for implementation during 12th Plan with an outlay of Rs.568.54 crore. For the current year (2015-16) an allocation of Rs.96.46 crore (GOI share) has been made. The scheme will be implemented on 50:50 sharing pattern between GOI and State Governments.