Chief Minister MK Stalin on Monday launched the Kalaignar All Village Integrated Agriculture Development Program (KAVIADP) which will initially cover 9 lakh farming families in 1,997 village panchayats and the estimated cost for the project is Rs 227 crore. “KAVIADP will cover all the 12,525 village panchayats in five years,” the Chief Minister said.

Stalin also said that the objective of the scheme is to cultivate fallow lands in rural habitations, diversify water resources and increase usage of solar pumps, establish micro irrigation facilities in all rural areas, market farm products by value addition, establish small water bodies for irrigation retaining ground water, increase rural infrastructure, up the production of milk through developing cattle health, issuing change of patta, e-adangal and certificates for micro and small farmers through the Revenue Department, issuing more crop loans through cooperative societies, desilting waterways that are used for irrigation and so on.

“The programme aims to achieve economic development in rural areas by integrating services of all Departments concerned,” the CM said. Farmers from the 1,997 village panchayats will coordinate and form farm producer organisations to provide technical training. Through this scheme, villages will self-sustain and people might stop migration to urban areas, the CM said. He also said that this scheme is one of the seven long-term plans for the development of Tamil Nadu, aiming at “increasing productivityhappy farmers”.