Bhojpurभोजपुर

What the plan promotes

• ▸Crop credit is the single biggest opportunity at Rs 2162.61 cr, built on paddy, wheat, red gram (lal chana), peas and vegetables; over 80% of the district's population depends directly or indirectly on farming.
• ▸Dairy leads allied-farming potential at Rs 226.34 cr, with Ara Dairy processing unit and Shahabad Milk Producers' Cooperative (665 societies, 62,276 members) already in place; NABARD has sanctioned a Farmer Producer Organisation for milk producers.
• ▸MSME term credit of Rs 1820.25 cr targets the two industrial estates at Koilwar and Bihia and the ethanol processing unit at Gadhani, which is putting Bhojpur on the state's industrial map.
• ▸Farm mechanisation (Rs 175.60 cr) and water resources/minor irrigation (Rs 138.01 cr) are the next-largest allied lines; farmers are showing strong interest in the Bihar government's farm-machinery subsidy scheme, especially for vegetables.
• ▸Storage and marketing infrastructure worth Rs 206.58 cr is flagged as a big gap-filler — the district lacks adequate warehouses for wheat, paddy and maize; upgrading the Ara market yard (mandi) is a named priority under the Agriculture Infrastructure Fund.
• ▸Food and agro-processing offers Rs 126.07 cr; the district already has active food processing, plus growing leather, toy-making, readymade-garment and artificial-jewellery clusters.

Gaps the plan names

• ▸Land holdings are small, fragmented and uneven, and average holding size is shrinking — this makes marketable surplus low and hits small and marginal farmers hardest.
• ▸Inadequate market infrastructure and weak farm-gate/marketing linkages force farmers to depend heavily on middlemen and local moneylenders instead of institutional credit.
• ▸No adequate warehousing/storage exists for wheat, paddy and maize, so there is large scope to build godowns under the Agriculture Infrastructure Fund.
• ▸Poor access to quality inputs, limited farmer access to public resources, and slow adoption of modern technology and cheaper inputs are dragging on productivity.
• ▸The credit-deposit (CD) ratio is well below the state average and banking reach is thin in blocks like Tarari, Sahar, Charpokhari, Agiaon and Gadhani; land record computerisation, land consolidation and wider extension services are the suggested actions.