Chandigarh, The Punjab Government today announced a new scheme to encourage popular plantation in the state to motivate farmers to go for crop diversification. Disclosing this here today, Forests Minister Mr. Chunni Lal Bhagat said that to bring maximum farmers under the ambit of this scheme it has been decided to provide free saplings of popular to the farmers.

He said that at the initial stage Doaba, Majha and Bisat regions have been identified to encourage the farmers for popular plantation as ecologically these areas were most suitable to these plants. To assist the farmers, forest department would provide free saplings at all district headquarters on the first come first serve basis and all District Forest Officers have been asked to provide technological knowhow to all those interested farmers on priority basis.

Besides that the land covered under popular plantation would also be exempted from all forest laws and farmers would remain the sole owner of produced wood with the assistance of forest department.  To ensure the zero loss in cash crop production, the department would facilitate the farmers with technical advice for inter cropping during first three years, he added. The Minister has also said that except from paddy and wheat generally farmers faced the shortage of market for alternative crops and to overcome from this the Punjab Government has sanctioned to set up the modern lakkar (wood) Mandis across the state, where farmers would be able to sell their production.