Agro Money

Financing for Bio-Fuel (Jatropha)
30% subsidy from National Oilseeds and Vegetable Oils Board (NOVOD Board)

Introduction
The country has enormous potential of oilseeds of tree origin like mahua, neem, simarouba, karanja, ratanjyot, jojoba, cheura, kokum, wild apricot, bhikal, wild walnut, kusum, tung etc. which can be grown and established in the wasteland and varied agro-climatic conditions. These have domestic and industrial utility like agriculture, cosmetic, pharmaceutical, diesel and substitute, cocoa-butter substitute etc. Most of these TBOs are scattered in forest and non-forest areas and hardly 20% of the existing potential is being crushed and utilized that too of poor quality and the rest potential is going waste. Though the country has vast potential of above TBOs found in forest & non forest area's with multiple use. But it is not being utilised fully due to lack of awareness of their uses, collection and marketing etc. Besides, lack of proper facility for storage, seed collection, longgestation period, fruiting/maturity season coinciding with rain etc. are main constraints limiting to the collection and utilization of above TBOs.

Back-ended Credit linked subsidy programmes
The following activities are being undertaken by providing 30 percent back-ended capital investment subsidy by which the subsidy is linked up with credit (50%) from the institutional finance. The remaining 20% margin money is to be contributed by the beneficiaries. The margin money is monetized in the form of labour, land cost, watch & ward etc. The scheme has been made broad based, decentralized, entrepreneur driven and result oriented.

Establishment of seed procurement centre
In order to increase the procurement of quality seeds of various TBOs, the infrastructural facilities for handling and storage of TBOs, equipped with pre-processing facilities like seed driers, depulper, decorticator, cleaner, grader, digital moisture meter, digital weighing machine, seed storage, drying floor godown, expellers etc. are being created. It will help in maintaining the quality of collected seeds by avoiding deterioration of seeds due to prolonged storage at unequipped centres and to provide remunerative prices to seed collectors. The sub-centres are also established around main centres to facilitate easy transportation of village level collection by the farmers and subsequently disposal of bulk collections from sub-centres to the main centre.

Installation of multi-purpose pre-processing and processing facility
The multi-purpose pre-processing and processing facilities like seed driers,
depulper, decorticator, cleaner, grader etc. are installed to maintain the quality of seed. The installation of these pre-processing facilities would enable the seed collector to get the remunerative price.

Installation of oil expeller
Presently, the oil from TBOs is being extracted through traditional ghani. The recovery of oil in the traditional ghani is lesser and that too of inferior quality. Moreover, its capacity is lesser as compared to improved oil expellers. Therefore, it is proposed to install the improved oil expeller preferably multipurpose to increase oil recovery, efficiency, avoid nutritional losses, lesser extraction cost etc.

Nursery raising and Commercial Plantation of TBOs
The plantation of quality seedlings of various TBOs i.e. mahua, simarouba, kokum, jojoba, jatropha, karanja, neem, wild apricot, cheura and tung is being undertaken in compact areas comprising of cultivable wasteland/degraded land in potential states. The maintenance of these plantations would be ensured by providing necessary technical and financial support to the programme implementing agencies till the initiation of fruiting. The gestation period of most of the TBOs is long ranging from 2 to 9 years. The unit cost of raising nursery, plantation and maintenance in respect of various TBOs has been worked in consultation with NABARD.