- Each District will formulate a District Agriculture Plan (DAP) by including the resources available from other existing schemes, District, State, or Central schemes such as BRGF, SGSY, NREGS and Bharat Nirman, etc. The District Agricultural Plans shall not be the usual aggregation of the existing schemes but would aim at moving towards projecting the requirements for development of Agriculture and allied sectors of the district. These plans will present the vision for Agriculture and allied sectors within the overall development perspective of the district. The District Agriculture Plans would present the financial requirement and the sources of financing the agriculture development plans in a comprehensive way. Since RKVY is conditional to proper District Planning and since Planning Commission has already circulated guidelines for District Planning in line with Constitutional requirements, these requirements should be adhered to by the state as far as possible. The states will have to specify the institutional mechanisms evolved by them for District Planning as resolved in the NDC and submit a status report at the stage of the Annual Plan exercise. The SLSC will monitor and ensure this. The DAP will include animal husbandry and fishery, minor irrigation projects, rural development works, agricultural marketing schemes and schemes for water harvesting and conservation, etc. keeping in view the natural resources and technological possibilities in each district.
- Each state will prepare a comprehensive State Agricultural Plan (SAP) by integrating the District Plans. The state will have to, at the outset, indicate resources that can flow from the state to the district. The DAP will integrate multiple programmes that are in operation in the district concerned, include the resources and activities indicated by the state, combine the resources available from the other programmes and finalize the plan. The elements that will be taken into account should cover at the very least
- Sectoral and District segments of the State Plan.
- Centrally sponsored schemes, viz., NREGS (National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme), BRGF (Backward Region Grant Fund), SGSY (Swarn Jayanti Gram Swarojgar Yojana) and Bharat Nirman, etc. and
- Tied and untied grants from the Central and State Finance Commissions.
The preparation of the State Agricultural Plan could be a two-way process. In one method, the state nodal department (Agriculture Department) could obtain the draft DAPs from the districts in the first instance and examine if aspects of importance to the state are properly covered in the district plans or not. For example, at the state level, the vision could be to set up fertiliser quality testing labs in certain districts. The state should, at this stage of scrutiny, ensure that establishment of the fertilizer testing labs is incorporated in the District Agricultural Plans of the districts concerned. Ensuring that the state’s priorities with respect to Agriculture and allied sectors are appropriately captured in the District Agricultural Plans would be the responsibility of the nodal department/ State agency vested with the responsibility of preparing the SAPs. In the other method, the state Nodal Agency could communicate to the districts in the first instance, the state’s priorities that ought to reflect in the respective district plans and the districts may incorporate these in their district plans. The preparation of the District Agriculture Plan is an elaborate, exhaustive and iterative process so every care should be taken by the state nodal department and the district agriculture department officials in ensuring that the DAPs are properly and comprehensively made.
A pictorial representation of the DAP is in the box.
1. Shaded portions indicate overlap/convergence of activities
2. This is only an indicative diagram and by no means is exhaustive, i.e, other sectoral plan could also converge.
2. This is only an indicative diagram and by no means is exhaustive, i.e, other sectoral plan could also converge.
- Several states/UTs may already have prepared comprehensive district and state
agriculture plans. They may ascertain if they could be updated and used for the
purposes of the RKVY. However, in states with no such preparation, an exercise
should immediately commence, so as to complete it within a three month period.
The district level potential linked credit plans (PLP) already prepared by the
NABARD may be useful in this regard. The state governments are advised to make
best use of the PLPs and SREPs (Strategic Research and Extension Plans)
developed under the ATMA programme. The guidelines for preparing the District
Development Plans have been communicated to the state governments by the
Planning Commission. For the purpose of the RKVY, the District Development
Plans so prepared, in accordance with the Planning Commission?s Guidelines
should be broadly sufficient. It should however be ensured that the convergence
with other programmes as well as the role assigned to the PRIs are satisfactory. For
the year 2007-08, a clear indication should be given by the states that they are
encouraging the preparation of the district agriculture plans that are integral to the
District Development Plan. The intent of the states will be known by the number of
districts already covered, and the availability of a road map for covering the
remaining districts. Eventually, ie., from 2008-09 onwards, no assistance under the
RKVY shall be available unless all the districts are ready with the District Plans.
Wherever the states feel the need to engage consultants to prepare the DAP and/or SAP, they may do so.
- The finalized State Agriculture Plan will be placed before the Department of
Agriculture (DAC) and the Planning Commission, as a part of the State Plan
exercise, for Additional Central Assistance by the State Planning Department. The
DAC and Planning Commission will approve the SAP with such suggestions as
may be necessary. The states will provide complete rationale and justification for
the assistance sought, well before the state plan discussions to give sufficient time
to the DAC and the Planning Commission to firm up their views on the proposals
and make such consultations as may be necessary with concerned departments.
- The districts will be required to prepare a shelf of projects, for posing to the SLSC under Stream-I. At least 75% of the total funds under the RKVY that a state gets entitled to, will be available under the Stream-I. The Nodal Department/Agency will undertake/compile such projects from each of the districts, prioritize them and place them before the SLSC. The SLSC is vested with the authority to sanction the projects under Stream-I in a meeting that will be attended by representatives of the Government of India. The Nodal Agency will give at least 15 clear days of notice to the representatives of the Government of India while sending the meeting notice, along with a gist of the agenda. The projects posed to the SLSC under Stream-I shall be consistent with the District and State Agriculture Plans. The balance of the total RKVY funds will be available for strengthening of the existing schemes and for filling resource gaps under the State Plans. This would be untied assistance to the states.
- A state is permitted to use upto 1% of its total RKVY funds for incurring administrative expenditure, that includes payments to consultants, recurring expenses of various kinds, staff costs, etc. However, no permanent employment can be created, nor can vehicles be purchased.
- The DAC may retain a proportion of 1% of the RKVY funds at its level, so as to
organize pan-India evaluations or for such administrative contingencies that may
arise at various times