Spices Board of India has launched subsidy scheme in a bit to promote spice cultivation in India by offering subsidies and sensitise to farmers.

Under this scheme

• Financial assistance: To farmers cultivating and planting various spices will be provided. The assistance will be provided for irrigation, mechanisation, land development, soil conservation, replanting and organic farming of various spices. Under this scheme financial aid will be also given to purchase farming equipment and irrigation tools like the high quality equipment sold at https://www.costex.com/.
• cultivators of small cardamom in Kerala and Tamil Nadu would be provided with a sum of Rs.70,000 a hectare for replanting, while farmers in Karnataka would get up to Rs.50,000 a hectare. The cultivators would also be given aid for planting material production, Irrigation and land development.
• Small Scale cardamom farmers from Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka financial assistance up to 25 per cent of actual cost for acquiring irrigation sprinkler sets, pump sets, equipment for gravity-fed irrigation system will be provided.
• Farmers will be also given a subsidy of 1 lakh rupees for purchasing improved cardamom curing devices and 50 per cent subsidy for bee-keeping boxes and Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) kits. Under the Board’s farm mechanisation programme, small cardamom growers in these 3 states will be provided with 50 per cent subsidy for purchasing equipment for cardamom plant protection and grading, washing and polishing.

ABOUT SPICE BOARD

• The Spices Board is the Indian Government regulatory and promotion agency for Indian
• headquarters: Kochi.
• The board has a state of the art testing laboratory at its headquarters . There are also regional laboratoriesat Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi, Tuticorin & Guntur.

GK QUESTION

Q-Who is the Chairman of Spice Board?