The Government of India is implementing Soil Health Management & Soil Health Card Schemes under the National Project on Soil Health & Fertility of National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture since the year 2014-15. Soil health card provides information to farmers on nutrient status of their soil along with recommendations on appropriate dosage of nutrients to be applied for improving soil health and its productivity. So far, 23.58 crore soil health cards have been distributed to farmers. Now, these schemes have been merged as Soil Health & Fertility component of Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY). The guidelines for implementation of various activities have been issued to the farmers from time to time regarding the health of the soil under the scheme. Based on the recommendations on Soil Health Card (SHC), the trainings & demonstrations are conducted to create the awareness among the farmers for adopting the recommendations on judicious use of chemical fertilizers including secondary and micronutrients in conjunction with organic manures & bio-fertilizers. So far, 93781 farmer’s trainings, 6.45 lakh demonstrations, 7425 farmer’s melas/ campaigns on soil health card recommendations have been organized across the country.

Since, 2014-15, total 8272 Soil Testing Labs (1068 Static Soil Testing Labs, 163 Mobile Soil Testing Labs, 6376 Mini Soil Testing Labs and 665 Village Level Soil Testing Labs) have been established across the country. The State-wise details of Soil Testing Labs established are given below:

State-wise details of Soil Testing Laboratories established in the country under the scheme from the year 2014-15 to 2023-24

Sl. No.	State	Static lab	Mobile lab	Mini lab	Village Level lab
1	Andaman & Nicobar	1	0	0	0
2	Andhra Pradesh	47	13	1328	16
3	Arunachal Pradesh	17	3	0	0
4	Assam	26	0	214	0
5	Bihar	39	9	0	72
6	Chhattisgarh	33	0	111	35
7	Goa	2	0	0	0
8	Gujarat	22	0	230	30
9	Haryana	53	0	104	36
10	Himachal Pradesh	11	7	69	0
11	Jammu & Kashmir	22	12	0	21
12	Jharkhand	29	0	1300	0
13	Karnataka	96	1	6	291
14	Kerala	22	11	0	0
15	Ladakh	2	0	0	1
16	Madhya Pradesh	50	0	626	12
17	Maharashtra	213	31	48	0
18	Manipur	9	3	3	2
19	Meghalaya	5	0	8	0
20	Mizoram	3	3	0	0
21	Nagaland	16	3	0	74
22	Odisha	30	30	0	40
23	Puducherry	3	0	0	0
24	Punjab	24	3	0	0
25	Rajasthan	101	12	0	0
26	Sikkim	3	0	0	14
27	Tamil Nadu	36	16	0	1
28	Telangana	40	4	2050	0
29	Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu	0	0	0	0
30	Tripura	4	2	100	13
31	Uttar Pradesh	75	0	179	6
32	Uttarakhand	13	0	0	1
33	West Bengal	21	0	0	0
Total		1068	163	6376	665

 No financial assistance is provided to States/ Union Territories for hiring of man power, therefore, the data of employees working in Soil Testing Labs are not maintained by Government of India. Total Rs.229.95 crore has been released to States/UTs for Soil Testing Labs under the scheme. Out of this, Rs.83.31 crore has been released to States/UTs for the past five years.

This information was given by the Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, Shri Arjun Munda in a written reply in Lok Sabha today.

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