Imphal: Chief Minister N. Biren Singh Tuesday attended a videoconference of Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Narendra Singh Tomar with Chief Ministers of States on initiatives and schemes for farmers’ welfare.
The objectives of the conference were to highlight salient features of Atmanirbhar Krishi for Atmanirbhar Bharat strategy and role of states, setting up of dedicated state teams with strong leadership to implement national programmes with state’s specific inputs, enabling states to enhance farmers’ incomes and state GDP and knowledge sharing amongst states and centre of new and innovative initiatives and develop a spirit of collaboration.
Giving his presentation at the conference, N. Biren Singh stated that his Government had been putting in all possible efforts in the past few years to ensure the effective implementation of flagship schemes in the State for the welfare of the farming community.
Regarding the Agriculture Infrastructure Fund (AIF), he extended a proposal that if the fund could be made available to the State then it would be easier to uplift the agricultural entrepreneurs as the State Government had started providing loans to Start-ups on agriculture. He also informed that only one agro entrepreneur from the State had applied for the scheme so far as applicants had to apply directly to the Central Government and many were not aware of the application procedure.
Speaking on the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-Kisan) and saturation of Kisan Credit Card (KCC), he continued that the total beneficiaries under the scheme in the State were 6,04,300 and a total of 30,284 KCCs had been issued. He further added that a proposal for matching 8,179 PM-Kisan beneficiaries had been sent to the bank concerned for the grant of KCC loan. On the National Farmers Database with connectivity to State land records database, he informed that digitization of land records in the State was in good progress and also placed the status of computerization for certain districts.
Regarding the status of the National Mission on Oilseeds & Oil palm (NMOOP), the Chief Minister stated that the State Government had constituted a sub-Committee, Oil Palm Manipur, to oversee the successful implementation of the Oil Palm Project. To test the suitability and economic viability of the crop, adaptive trials of 0.25 hectares had been conducted in 22 different locations. Identification and acquisition of land for about 30 hectares for raising of Oil Palm nursery at Jiribam were in progress and likely to be finalized soon, he added.
He also stressed the need for technical and financial support from the Central Government in the successful implementation of schemes taken up for the welfare of farmers.
The video conference was also attended by the Union Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Piyush Goyal, Chief Ministers and Agriculture Ministers of different States. At the Chief Minister’s Secretariat, Agriculture Minister Oinam Lukhoi and Commissioner (Agriculture) M. Joy also attended the conference along with Chief Minister N. Biren Singh.
