Construction of buildings for the integrated agricultural extension centres at six places in the district would begin soon, Collector K.S.Palanisamy has said. Ten integrated agricultural extension centres, which would serve as a one-stop shop for technical support and input requirements of farmers, would be established in Tiruchi district and work was underway on four of them.
Work on the construction of the extension centres at Manikandam, Tiruverumbur, Thottiyam and Vaiyampatti was under progress and they would be completed soon. Construction of buildings for the centres at Lalgudi, Manapparai, Uppilliyapuram, Marungapuri, Thathaiyengarpet and Anadhanallur would begin soon, he said after inspecting the construction of the building for an extension centre at Thottiyam on Wednesday.
Each of the centres would be set up at a cost of Rs. 1.50 crore. While a majority of the centres were being established with the assistance from National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development under the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF), a few are being set up under the National Agricultural Development Programme.
The centres would have facilities for conducting demonstrations, meetings, trainings, field campaigns for implementation of State and central government schemes and offices for officials of agriculture, horticulture, seed certification, agricultural engineering and block-level technical managers. They would have provisions for scientific storage and mini exhibition halls.
Mr.Palanisamy on Thursday inspected the creation of farm ponds and rejuvenation of open wells in disuse at Emurpatti under the Watershed Development Agency. Farmers, he said, could harvest rainwater by creating farm ponds or by collecting the water in open wells that are in disuse in their farms. Joint Director of Agriculture R.Chandrasekaran, P.Murugesan, Executive Engineer, Agricultural Engineering, were present.
