more-in TIRUCHI About 52,000 cashew plants, 70,200 mango plants and 1,04,000 silver oak plants have been supplied to identified tribal families on the Pachamalai hills in Tiruchi and Salem districts under a tribal development project funded by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD). Disclosing this there during an inspection of the implementation of the project here recently, A.K.Padhi, General Manager, NABARD, Chennai, said NABARD had launched the project with a financial outlay of ?6.99 crore, including a grant of ?5.85 crore and ?1.14 crore as loans, in 2014. The project covers 1,390 tribal families in the two districts. Families are expected to get an income of ?1 lakh per acre from the fruits planted during the first year of the project. The survival rate of the plants has been over 90% for all the three plants and 10-15% of the plants were replaced during the project. In order to offset the loss during the initial years of planting of fruits, inter crops such as black gram seeds were supplied to 238 farmers, red gram seeds to 301 and castor plants to 400 farmers. The highlight of the project has been that 349 acres of barren land have been converted into cultivable land because of soil and water conservation measures initiated under the project, Mr.Padhi said after visiting the farmers fields. S.Suresh Kumar, Assistant General Manager, NABARD, Tiruchi, and representatives of Hand in Hand India, the implementing agency, accompanied Mr.Padhi.

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