New Delhi, May 10 (IANS): The National Horticulture Board (NHB), an autonomous organisation under the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, has cleared 1,278 pending subsidy applications for integrated development of hi-tech commercial horticulture in the country, including the promotion of post-harvest and cold-chain infrastructure during the last one year which were pending since long.

In the last one year, subsidies have been released to 357 beneficiaries while 921 new projects have been approved, the NHB said.

The schemes of NHB have been able to establish a large area under protected cultivation for commercially important flower and high-value vegetable crops and also a sizeable cold storage capacity in the country.

With the financial support of NHB, an additional area of 2,210 acres under hi-tech commercial horticulture, both in open and protected area, has been brought under horticulture. Also, additional cold storage capacity of 1.15 lakh MT has been created under the Cold Storage Scheme of NHB.

NHB has also facilitated the convergence of its back-end capital investment subsidy schemes with the Agri Infrastructure Fund Scheme of the Ministry of Agriculture to encourage farmers and entrepreneurs to take advantage of the subvention of 3 per cent interest on loan with credit guarantee coverage for a loan up to Rs 2 crore for setting up post-harvest and cold-chain infrastructure in the horticulture sector.