State Cabinet Minister Subodh Uniyal has said on Friday that Uttarakhand being endowed with a tremendous scope in the sphere of horticulture, the State Government has decided to merge the agriculture department with the horticulture department to make the combined department more efficient.
“Each officer of the agriculture department would adopt one village to develop it as model village,” he said while asking them to identify the problems plaguing the farmers and also to educate them about the advantages of modern cultivation, industries based on horticulture/ agriculture and food processing/ branding.
He also directed them to develop markets and procurement centres so as to enable the farmers to get better price of their produce and also to spare them the loss they incur while handing over their produce to the traders to sell them at much lower prices.
“You must sort out the farmers’ grievances by firming up a work plan and executing them on the ground. If this is done we might bring prosperity to them, residing in the border and rural areas, proving an effective means to check migration,” the minister said.
He also laid emphasis on Pantnagar and Bharsar universities ensuring availability of quality seeds and fertilisers, scientific farming/horticulture and special technique for organic farming and also preparing a work plan to develop farmer welfare/problem solution centre at the local levels. “If there is any man power crunch coming in the way of their implementation, it must be appropriately addressed by filling the vacant posts through DPC or direct recruitment,” he said. He also made it clear that important works like monitoring, research and inspection should not be conducted through outsourcing under any circumstances.
He instructed the universities to develop agriculture as a model mode of livelihood in order to enthuse the youth to adopt the same as the means of eking livelihood. He said that agriculture must be turned into an instrument of self- employment. He also instructed them to coordinate with the departments concerned to execute the government-envisaged programmes involving ecotourism, village tourism and local agriculture tourism on the ground.
Additional chief secretary Ranbir Singh said that despite several welfare works being done for the farmers and horticulturists at the central and the state levels, the farmers are yet to be enthused to go for collective farming. “It seems there is some gap still existing between the planning and the execution of the projects on the ground.
For instance, sampling of soil health not getting implemented because procedural delay in sampling of soil and its test, farmers are unable to reap its benefit,” he said while instructing them to prepare a plan which can be implemented on the ground without any hitch, helping the farmers reap its long-term benefits. He further said that the plans and their execution must be environment- friendly so that their impact is felt by the coming generation.
He gave these instructions while convening a review meeting involving the Centre and the state government-sponsored projects being executed through agriculture department, Pantnagar agriculture university, horticulture and food processing department and silk department.
Among those present at the meeting were Bageshwar MlA Chandan Ramdas, Pantnagar University dean Dr IJ Singh, Bharsar V-C Dr Mathew Prasad, Uttarakhand agriculture produce and marketing board MD Dheeraj Garbyal and GM Vijay Kumar, organic produce MD Vinay Kumar, seed & organic certification director Gauri Shankar and horticulture and food processing department director Dr BS Negi.