Professional Documents
Culture Documents
1. Introduction
Fertilizer consumption in India is highly skewed with wide inter-state, inter- district and
inter-crop variations. The NPK ratio - a measure of balanced use of fertilizer - shows
wide inter-state disparity. Though there has been an impressive growth in the
consumption of fertilizers in post green revolution period, their reckless use has been one
of the reasons for declining productivity in recent years. Investigations have revealed that
one reason for the unbalanced fertilizer use is lack of adequate soil testing facilities that
forced the farmers to rely on fertilizer dealers for advice on the fertilizer requirement.
2. Constraints in functioning of existing Soil Testing Laboratories (STLs)
In spite of the proven benefits of the soil testing service for farmers, the service is
suffering on financial, management and technical fronts. Receipt of large number of
samples by each of the STLs makes it difficult for them to analyze and send the reports in
time to the farmers. This may be one of the reasons for lack of required success in the
programme, as time taken between collection of samples and receipt of recommendations
by the farmers is too long. In other words, it can be stated that the huge network of STLs
has not yet rendered the services of a watchdog for monitoring the soil health under
major cropping systems in the country.
There is a need to organize soil testing laboratories at block level so that farmers need not
travel far to get the soil tested and wait endlessly to get the results and recommendations.
Keeping this in view, a scheme is formulated to serve as guide to aspiring individuals /
institutions in establishing a static soil testing laboratory offering services of soil and
water testing, consultancy on problems like soil reclamation etc.
3. Objectives:
The scheme has the following objectives:i.
ii.
iii.
the regions. The annual analyzing capacity per STL has decreased in nineties in all the
regions (except for north-east region) which may be due to the fact that the new STLs
being set up are either mobile vans or are of less analyzing capacity (about 5.0 lakh
samples per year). In all the regions, potential of STLs are not efficiently utilized and
their utilization efficiency varies from 64% in northern region to as low as 16% in Northeastern region. The utilization efficiency of STLs has drastically reduced in all the
regions. It has been reduced by more than 50% in eastern and north eastern region
followed by 27% in northern region and about 11% both in southern and western regions
during the last 10 years resulting in a net reduction of 20% (from 76% to 56%) at all
India level. Since challenges ahead are to encourage precise and balanced fertilization in
irrigated areas (northern & southern region) and ensure adequate fertilization in other
area, especially dry land area of western & southern regions, there is a need for
maintaining or improving soil fertility, correcting inherent soil nutrient deficiency and
restoring productivity of the land that has been degraded by exploitative activities in the
past. It also highlights that the need for intensive soil tests for developing specific
nutrient management scenarios/strategies at more desegregated level is enormous in all
the regions. Thus, it reveals that the creation or establishment of new STLs in the country
at each block level is essential to cater to the needs of the farming community.
Though there is enormous scope for the project, lack of awareness among farmers on the
importance of soil test based fertilizer use limit the commercial scope. A laboratory with
a capacity to test 8000 samples per year will be adequate to cater to a few villages in one
block. The scientist manning the unit could also engage in providing guidance in the
areas of land reclamation, compost making, use of bio-fertilizer etc.
5. Project requirements
5.1 Location
Such a unit has to be located in block head quarters. The unit could also be housed in a
laboratory of the Junior college to take advantage of the facilities and expertise available.
Vocational course for S.S.C. students may also be run in those junior colleges on
collection of soil samples for testing and laboratory analytical methodologies during
summer months so that these students become expert trainees and they may be absorbed
as soil health workers at block level to facilitate soil testing programme with fair degree
of success.
5.2 Capacity of the Laboratory
Though it is possible to test 10000 -14000 samples in a year, the installed capacity is
considered at a moderate level of 8000 samples annually and the capacity utilization is
considered at 35%, 50%, 75%, and 80% in the first three years and fourth year onwards
in that order.
5.3 Equipment
The equipments suggested for the laboratory are given in Annexure I. These equipments
can be used for finding out pH, electrical conductivity, available Nitrogen, Phosphorus,
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pH meter
20000
ii)
20000
iii)
200000
iv)
Spectro photometer
50000
v)
Flame photometer
50000
vi)
10000
vii)
40000
viii)
20000
ix)
35000
x)
Gas Connection
10000
xi)
Drying oven
30000
xiii)
50000
xiii)
65000
Office equipment
i)
Motor cycle
50000
ii)
Office furniture
10000
iii)
30000
iv)
Telephone connection
5000
115000
50000
Total cost
860000
Annexure II
Establishment of Soil Testing Laboratory and Soil Health Counseling Facility
Operational Cost
(Amount )
Sl Item
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Year 4
No.
onwards
1
12000
12000
12000
12000
264000
264000
264000
264000
84000
120000
180000
192000
6000
6000
6000
6000
6000
6000
6000
6000
7200
7200
7200
7200
12000
12000
12000
12000
12000
12000
12000
12000
7200
7200
7200
7200
410400
446400
506400
518400
10 Total
Annexure III
Establishment of Soil testing and Soil Health Counseling Facility Techno-economic
Parameters
1. A team of one specialist and two Semi-Skilled workers can analyse 50 samples per day.
2. Analysis work will be done for five days in a week, sample collection, report writing etc
will be done on the remaining one day.
3. Monthly 1000 samples will be analysed and yearly 8000 samples will be analysed.
4. Sample collection and analysis will be done only eight months in a year depending upon
cropping pattern.
5. Capacity utilization will be 35%, 50%, 75% and 80% of the installed capacity in the first
three years and 4th year onwards in that order.
6. Charges for testing would be 150/ per soil sample and 150/ per water sample.
7. The chemicals and glassware consumption is considered @ 30/ per sample.
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Expenses incurred
Net Income
35
50
75
80
2800
4000
6000
6400
420000
600000
900000
960000
446400
506400
518400
420000
153600
393600
441600
Annexure V
Establishment of Soil Testing Laboratory and Soil Health Counseling Facility
Financial Analysis
Item
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Year 4
Year 5
Year 6
Capital Cost
860000
Operational cost
410400
446400
506400
518400
518400
518400
Total cost
1270400
446400
506400
518400
518400
518400
Benefit
420000
600000
900000
960000
960000
960000
(850400)
153600
393600
441600
441600
441600
0.870
0.756
0.658
0.572
0.497
0.432
(739848)
116122
258989
252595
219475
190771
Net Benefit
Discount Factor at
15%
PW at 15%
NPW at 15%
298104
NPW at 25%
60224
NPW at 30%
(19177)
1.12
28.79%
Annexure VI
Establishment of Soil Testing and Soil Health Counseling Facility
Repayment Schedule
Total outlay
: 1270000
Margin money (15 %)
190000
1080000
Rate of interest
: 12%
Year
Bank loan
Outstanding
Net Income
1080000
(Amount )
Net Surplus
Repayment
Principal
Interest
Total
420000
180000
129600
309600
110400
900000
153600
108000
108000
45600
900000
393600
200000
108000
308000
85600
700000
441600
250000
84000
334000
107600
450000
441600
250000
54000
304000
137600
200000
441600
200000
24000
224000
217600