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A total of 1.12 crore soil health cards have been distributed so far and 2 crore cards are under printing and will be distributed before March 2016, the Agriculture Ministry said after a review meeting held recently with States and Union Territories.
Against the target of 104 lakh soil samples, States reported a collection of 81 lakh soil samples and tested 52 lakh samples, an official statement said on Wednesday.
At the meeting, Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh urged States to build a network of soil testing laboratories. The guidelines of the scheme have been amended to set up soil testing labs as well as mini labs through Capital Investment Subsidy Scheme implemented through the Nabard. The guidelines have been modified to involve students of agriculture and other science colleges in soil health card programme, he added.
He said most of the States were under the process of floating tenders for purchase of equipment for these labs, and urged them to use funds released by the Centre to set up laboratories with the added facility for micronutrient testing.
However, the Minister, who reviewed the National Portal on Soil Health Card, found that some States, mainly from the North-East, had not yet come on board. These are Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Goa, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Telangana and Tripura.
The target for 2015-16 is to collect 100 lakh soil samples and test these for issue of soil health cards.
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