Tripura Govt must focus on CSC development for the benefit of farmers: Union Minister

Udaipur: Tripura, a North-Eastern state where pineapple production in every year estimated 1.28 lakh MT spanning 8,800 hectares area. The farmers are now getting good price of pineapple to sell across the country with the help of Common Service Centres (CSC).
Sharing this information on his inaugural speech of ‘Startup Tripura’ programme Monday online, Union Minister of Information Technology and Communications, Government of India said Common Service Centres(CSC) is very important nowadays for the benefit of farmers too.
Common Service Centres (CSC) scheme is one of the mission mode projects under the Digital India Programme. The CSC centres are very important for Farmer Producer Organization (FPO) because the farmers who are actually staying at Bagma area under erstwhile capital city Udaipur in Tripura’s Gomati District could sell their products across the country India with the help of CSC, said Sudip Majumder, Chairman of Bagma Agri Producer Company Limited (BAPCL) today..
In course of conversation with Kiran Bhowmik of UNI Stinger, Sudip Majumder said BAPCL a company based on agricultural products and doing this company for the benefit of farmers in the state with the help of NABARD, Tripura Regional Office. The company BAPCL to sell their agricultural productions through an online platform with the help of their CSC in near future.
According to the report of government sources, a total of registered CSC in the state are 1227 where numbers of active centres are 957 and 782 numbers Gram Panchayats or Village Councils already covered by CSC in the state Tripura as of March 2019.
Sudip Majumder said, “BAPCL company is planning to sell paddy seeds with the help of CSC because the online platform is very easy to get money as well as others benefits”.
The sources of farmers’ communities at Bagma Agri Sector Office area under Deputy Director of Agriculture, Gomati District of Tripura said a total of 30,000 kg paddy seeds worth of Rs: 7,20,000 sold by 76 numbers of farmers to agriculture department in the month of February 2020 but the farmers have not been getting money from agriculture department for last 1.4 years.
Farmer of Bagma area Sanju Dey said that he had supplied a total of 9,600 kg paddy seeds to the government through Bagma Agri Sector Office last year but he has not been getting money from Agriculture Department for the last 16 months.
The farmers East Khupilong and Bagabasha village areas under Udaipur subdivision of Gomati District in Tripura said a total of 150 Kani land they have used last year for paddy seed production under seed village project sponsored by NABARD, Tripura Regional Office and a total of 105000 kg paddy produced by 120 farmers in respective villages.
The main goal of farmers’ to increase their income as double and they have produced paddy seeds under seed village project in accordance with the motivation of ‘Farmers Income Doubling’ by the government of India but the farmers failed to store their production as there is lack of warehouse at Bagma area. Though the price of paddy seeds Rs:35 per kilogram according to government rate but farmers sell their crop in local market at Rs:20 per kilogram with loss of Rs:15 per kilogram due to lack of storage facilities like ware house and all.
Though the farmers had produced paddy seeds under the seed village scheme of NABARD in view of more return but the farmers failed to achieve their goal of good return because of infrastructure problem in the agriculture sector in the state Tripura.
The farmers of Bagma area are highly interested to sell their agricultural production like paddy seeds through online with the help of CSC in BAPCL office at Bagma, said Chirantan Chakraborty, CEO of BAPCL.