Soil Health Card Scheme have been implemented in 32 States and UTs. The ranking of the States/UTs as per percentage of farmers covered is as follows:

 

States/UTs Ranking	% Target Achieved	States/UTs
1	100%	Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Tripura, Uttarakhand and  Dadra and Nagar Haveli.
2	90-95%	Kerala
3	85-90%	Haryana and Uttar Pradesh
4	80-85%	Bihar,  West Bengal and Goa
5	70-80%	J&K
6	50-70%	Puducherry and Andaman & Nicobar
7	40-50%	Odisha
8	30-40%	Sikkim
9	5-30%	Nagaland
10	<5%	Arunachal Pradesh

 

National Productivity Council (NPC) carried out a study on ‘Soil Testing Infrastructure for Faster Delivery of Soil Health Card in India’ (February, 2017). The study was conducted in 76 districts in 19 States covering 170 soil testing labs and 1700 farmers. It was found that: -

 

1. Application of fertilizer and micronutrients based on Soil Health Card (SHC) recommendations resulted in 8-10 % of savings.

 

2. Overall increase in the yield of crops to the tune of 5-6% reported by adopting the SHC recommendations.

 

MANAGE, Hyderabad carried out Impact study on Soil Health Card scheme (November, 2017) covering 3184 farmers in 199 villages of 16 states. It was found that overall, paddy farmers reduced use of urea by 9%, DAP/SSP by 7%, but increased use of Potassium by 20%. This is a healthy sign of moving towards balanced use of fertilizers. It showed a decline in costs per acre by about 4 to 10 percent.

This information was given in a written reply by the Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Shri Narendra Singh Tomar in Rajya Sabha today.

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APS

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