Aid farmers avail scheme benefits: Biswajit to officials
Source: Chronicle News Service

Imphal, November 13 2023: Rabi crop seeds for agricultural lands, which remained fallow due to rainfall deficit and ethnic crisis, have been distributed by agriculture minister Thongam Biswajit in a function held at Imphal West Agriculture Office, Lamphelpat, here, on Monday.

The district level distribution pro gramme was also attended by agriculture commissioner RK Dinesh, district agriculture officers and officials of the agriculture department.

Speaking to reporters in connection with the event, minister Th Biswajit acknowledged that as some districts faced shortage of water due to erratic rainfall during the monsoons farmers were not able to carry out agricultural activities.

The state government had also faced some issues while trying to distribute Rabi crop seeds to the affected farmers in time.

In addition, the farmers were not able to carry out agricultural activities as a result of the on-going crisis in the state which began from May 3 last.

Therefore, the government, taking into consideration, both the cases, decided to provide Rabi crop seeds to the farmers.

He further informed that the Rabi crop seeds which have been distributed to districts include 9.8 metric tonne (MT) of corn, 56.22 MT lentil, 62.05 MT mustard and 19.84MT field pea.

The minister also expressed gratitude to the union government for increasing budgetary allocation for various schemes after the state government proposed for revising the allocation for agriculture with the chief minister issuing necessary guidance to make it happen.

Minister Biswajit also commended the chief minister for allocating funds from the state budget for use in distribution of Rabi crop seeds which is provided to farmers to compensate the loss experienced due to the crisis.

He also said that a proposal was submitted to the Ministry of Home Affairs for granting relief to the farmers who have been affected by the ethnic violence following which the central government provided an amount of Rs 36.59 crore.

The agricultural department is currently compiling a report on the total area of agricultural lands affected due to lack of rainfall and the crisis in Manipur.

While urging the department officials to ensure that the farmers avail benefits of the different schemes under the department so as to help them (farmers) develop their economy, minister Biswajit said that some portion of the funds allocated for the schemes will be utilised on developing IEC materials and display on different social media platforms so that the public are made aware of the schemes.

In connection with the issue of fertilizer (Urea), Biswajit said that before he was the agriculture minister, there were issues regarding availability of Urea to the farmers.

However, soon after he took over the responsibility of the department, no such issues have been reported and there is enough fertilizer in stock.

He also appealed to the farmers to take up organic farming so as to prevent the end users from consuming food crops containing toxic fertilizers and pesticides.

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