A Rs 627-crore project in Vidarbha's six suicide-prone, cotton-producing districts will help farmers in capacity building, increasing the farm produce and marketing.

Animal husbandry, dairy farming and pisciculture, too, will be promoted

Multiplicity of authorities with almost no coordination, absence of a symbiotic relation among beneficiaries, NGOs and private market players, and poor or corrupt management generally plague all agricultural initiatives in the country.

This time around, however, the Maharashtra Government has sought to take care of all of these problems in its new major experiment.

To be implemented in concert with UN-affiliate International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD) and the Ratan Tata Trust, the eight-year, $127 million (Rs 627 crore) “Convergence of Agricultural Interventions in Six Distress Districts of Maharashtra” (CAIM) project aims at ushering in the first integrated public-private-government initiative in the field of agriculture anywhere in India.

The project, cleared by IFAD in April, will soon be implemented in six suicide-prone cotton-producing Vidarbha districts — Buldana, Akola, Amravati, Washim, Yavatmal and Wardha — where the state and Centre packages are already being implemented for farmers.

The Planning Department of the state Government cleared it on Tuesday. “The project will now go to Finance Department and then to the state Cabinet for their assent. It’s a mere formality,” said a top official.

While IFAD will fund $41.31 million, the state Government will provide $41.15 million and the Ratan Tata Trust $ 18.25 million. Banks will fund about $14 million while the private sector contribution in the form of equity will be to the extent of about $6 million. Beneficiaries will contribute up to $6 million.

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