The budget of the State would be made after consultation of the people and it would be a people’s budget in true sense claimed the Chief Minister of Uttarakhand Trivendra Singh Rawat while interacting with farmers at Gangani in Uttarkashi on Tuesday. Interacting with the farmers at ‘ Your Opinion-Your Budget’ programme, Rawat said that suggestions of general public, villagers, youth, women, soldiers and scheduled castes would be inculcated in the forthcoming budget of the State. He said the Government has provided a sum of Rs 6000 Crore for agriculture and allied sector. It must be written here that this is one of the best budgets in history.
Exhorting the farmers to lay emphasis on food processing and packaging to augment income, he said that only 15 per cent of produce in our country is processed while this figure is 40 per cent in foreign countries. Rawat said the farmers should adopt integrated farming to increase their income.
In the meeting a farmer of Badkot said that a special law for land consolidation should be enacted for compulsory consolidation in the mountainous areas of the State.
Another farmer suggested that separate agriculture policy should be made for mountainous areas as farming in these areas is markedly different from the areas of plain. A proposal to make special provision in the budget for dealing with the menace of monkeys was also made on the occasion. A farmer Sulochana Gaur suggested that the water sources should be recharged for good farming.
A farmer of Ravain valley said that the minimum support price should be declared for the apple, potato and pea of Ravain valley. A suggestion to set up a separate market for organic farming was made by a farmer. Another agriculturist said that subsidy on purchase of bullocks should be given to farmers of mountainous areas on the lines of subsidy given on purchase of tractors in plain areas. A proposal to encourage new techniques like pumping and sprinkling in mountainous agriculture was also made on the occasion.
After hearing the opinion of farmers, the CM assured that the suggestions on agriculture reforms would be included in the budget.