No intention to earn profit: MOMA project director
Source: Chronicle News Service

Imphal, June 16 2021: Manipur Organic Mission Agency (MOMA) project director K Devdutta Sharma has said that the agency is making available fruits and vegetables collected from farmers to people at densely populated areas particularly in Imphal who are unable to go out of homes in view of curfew and there is no intention of the agency to earn profit from selling these products through home delivery.

In a video message released Wednesday, Devdutta Sharma said that observation made by a panellist during discussion on Impact TV on Tuesday depicting MOMA's home delivery of fruits and vegetables to people during curfew period as profit earning venture was very unfortunate and the agency would have been fortunate and happy had the panellist made the observation after fully understanding ground realities and MOMA's activities under horticulture and soil conservation department.

Had the panellist pin-pointed mistakes after understanding activities of the agency fully, MOMA and officials of the department would amend mistakes and plug the shortcomings, if any, but the panellist's comments without any basis and understanding was not fair and this would give wrong impression to the people about the agency's activities, Devdutta said.

The project director maintained that collection of fruits and vegetables from farmers and making available the same to people in densely populated area were done for the benefit of both the farmers and people as COVID-19 induced curfew has affected both the groups of people.

He also said that government decided to help farmers by collecting their produces which were about to rot so that farmers could earn profit at least to some extent and MOMA's activities were done with government's money which cannot be misused even one rupee and everything possible is being done to maintain accountability and transparency in agency's activities.

While maintaining that farmers are at no loss when MOMA collected their produces, K Devdutta Sharma said that the agency fixes price for fruits and vegetables to be collected and this price would never be a loss for farmers.

He also said that department outsourced people for home delivery of fruits and vegetables so that these produces could reach people as department has limited manpower and no post for home delivery was recruited.

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