Agartala: The council of ministers in a meeting approved the proposal for setting up an organic certification agency under the agriculture and farmers welfare department to execute the Prime Minister’s organic mission for the Northeast, said Information Minister Sushanta Chowdhury on Thursday.
Tripura would be the fifth state of the region after Manipur, Mizoram, Sikkim, and Nagaland have formulated organic policies and set up infrastructure for certification of the produce after Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared Sikkim to be India’s first fully organic State in January 2017 followed by Mizoram.
Chowdhury said the state government to establish the Tripura State Organic Product Certification Agency, which will not only be certifying the products but also, facilitate the process of organic cultivation and promotion in the state and added, “People of Tripura prefer organic produces but the production is not sufficient to cater the demand. Therefore, we are promoting organic cultivation.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has a dream to transform the North East into a hub of organic agriculture and gradually all the Northeastern states have been progressing towards that goal. Tripura has brought about 2,000 hectares of area under organic cultivation so far and set the goal to expand organic cultivation to 21,000 hectares of land in coming years, Chowdhury pointed out.
Apart from that, the government agreed to allot 2.8 acres of land to as many as 52 families who had lost their homes owing to the new Integrated Check Post coming up at Sabroom in South Tripura, the minister added.
