Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana - RAFTAAR

Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY) is a central sector scheme which aims to provide support to various kinds of interventions in agricultural sector to achieve annual growth rate of 4% in agriculture (initiated in 2007). The scheme allows states to choose their own agriculture and allied sector development activities as per the district/state agriculture plan.

• The government has recently revamped the scheme as RKVY – RAFTAAR (Remunerative Approaches for Agriculture and Allied sector Rejuvenation). The major sub-schemes of RKVY-RAFTAAR are as follows,
  • Bringing Green Revolution to Eastern India (BGREI)
  • Crop Diversification Program (CDP)
  • Reclamation of Problem Soil (RPS)
  • Foot & Mouth Disease – Control Program (FMD-CP)
  • Saffron Mission
  • Accelerated Fodder Development Programme (AFDP)
• The scheme focused on greater financial allocation on pre-harvest and post-harvest infrastructure and strengthening farmer’s efforts in risk mitigation and promoting agri-business entrepreneurship by creation of agri-infrastructure.
• The scheme has a major challenge of financial constraints as only 1% of RKVYs budget allocation is permitted to be used for managing administrative expenses. DAC (Department of Agriculture and Cooperation) does not have the trained manpower to undertake evaluation of implementation of RKVY. Also, lack of agro climatic study and its integration in decentralized local planning has affected implementation at the grass root level. The scheme has also inability to incentive states to allocate greater financial resources in agriculture and its allied sectors.