Govt to distribute paddy transplants
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, August 02 2017: Agriculture Minister V Hangkhanlian today announced that the Government would start distributing paddy transplants to farmers whose paddy fields were flooded during the recent flood .

Hangkhanlian made this statement in the State Assembly while clarifying to policy cut motions raised by Opposition members to the demand for Agriculture Department which amounted to Rs 215,96,89,000 .

Three varieties of paddy seeds which can be harvested within three months were sown over 95 hectares and they are now fit for transplantation .

Paddy fields now ready for transplantation would be identified through District Extension Officers and transplants would be distributed to farmers .

As for the paddy fields whose water levels do not recede even by the end of the current month, the Government has chalked out a plan to cultivate Sagol Hawai, Hangkhanlian informed the House .

The Government has also been considering to draw out water using water-pump sets from flooded paddy fields which could not be drained out naturally .

At the same time, the Government has taken up different measures to protect paddy fields under the Manipur Conservation of Paddy Land and Wetland Act 2014 .

Even though some areas of arable land have disappeared, the State's total area of arable land has increased after Agriculture Department converted large tracts of fallow lands into agricultural lands .

The State total area of arable land was 219950 hectares in 2002 but it increased to 2,34,120 hectares in 2016, Hangkhanlian claimed .

Correspondingly, agricultural production rose from 4,39,00 metric tonnes in 2002 to 5,97,670 in 2016 .

In line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision to double the country's agricultural production by 2022, the State Government has taken up necessary initiatives .

The department has taken up different measures under three plans namely short term plan, medium term plan and long term plan .

Informing that the Government would be able to make fertilizers available to farmers in the next couple of days, the Agriculture Minister claimed that 35 private dealers have been issued strict instructions to display prices of fertilizers as well as stock positions .

He further informed the House that necessary procedures would be initiated soon to investigate the failure of implementing the three-year scheme of replacing inorganic farming with organic farming whereby a huge amount was wasted.

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