Custom hiring centres (CHCs) and the dream of mechanized farming in India – An evaluation

Farm mechanization is one of the obligatory steps for transforming Indian agriculture. Keeping this point in view, the Government of India has taken several initiatives for the improvement of the farming system. Recently, Indian Government has introduced the Custom Hiring Centre project under the scheme of SMAM (Sub-Mission on Agricultural Mechanization). This scheme is playing an important role for poor farmers who are unable to buy costly farm types of machinery. Under this scheme, small and marginal farmers can use farm types of machinery under the control of Custom Hiring Centre where they charge comparatively low rent for use of types of machinery. As the small and marginal holdings constitute 80 per cent of total agricultural land, the potential of Custom Hiring Centre (CHC) is quite effective. The main objective of this paper is to evaluate the role of CHCs to promote farm mechanization. Simple statistical tools, tables and bar diagram has been used to arrive at scientific conclusions.