NABARD provides Fruit plants to Tribal farmers of Block Mughal Maidan under Wadi Project

Kishtwar : NABARD Kishtwar, in collaboration with National Level NGO Yusuf Meherally Center (YMC) on Sunday distributed fruit plants among the tribal farmers of the Mughal Maidan block as part of Wadi project being implemented in the area under the Tribal Development Program.”Wadi project” under Tribal Development Fund is being implemented jointly by National level NGO Yusuf Mehrerally Center (YMC) and NABARD in the area.Under this initiative, in the initial phase, fruit trees are to be planted for livelihood generation in the 9 tribal dominated villages of Mughal Maidan block of the district.About 500 families have been identified for the project who will be provided apple, walnut and pear trees. The project also envisages providing livestock to the landless tribal households to enable them to earn livelihood.Chairperson District Development Council Kishtwar Pooja Thakur, Vice Chairperson DDC Saima Parveen, Deputy Commissioner, Ashok Sharma and officers of agriculture and allied departments were also present as the guests on the occasion.

A large number of villagers from the 9 tribal villages of the block and YMC volunteers attended the program.District Development Council Chairperson, Pooja Thakur briefed the farmers about the benefits and potential of horticulture crops in the area.Deputy Commissioner, Kishtwar Ashok Sharma encouraged the farmers to take benefit of the project and generate income source for them.District Development Manager NABARD Nikhil Sharma enlightened the farmers about the “Wadi project”.He said NABARD is dedicated for the tribal empowerment and they are highly confident that the WADI project will be implemented very effectively and it will bring prosperity to the local tribal Community as the Wadi project is a very ambitious project started by NABARD in Kishtwar.Besides, he added that the successful implementation of this program in different districts of the country shows that the project not only improves the standard of living of the tribal population, but also helps in protecting and improving the environment as it is a very constructive and progressive initiative.The Chief Horticulture Officer Kishtwar Mushtaq Wani explained the planting techniques to the farmers after the plants were distributed among the farmers by the Chief Guest.The beneficiary farmers evinced great enthusiasm and pinned high hopes from the project Wadi.The YMC volunteers Kishtwar, Rajeshwar Singh, Rubaya Tabassum, Amit Kumar, Mohit Rana, Mohammad Sharif, Riyaz, Kashi Nath and Saleemas were also present.