The Utkal Chamber of Commerce and Industry (UCCI) on Tuesday organised a seminar on ‘Technology implementation in agriculture and food processing and fish production’ here.
Speaking on the occasion, Director of Agriculture and Food Processing, RS Gopalan said, “The 52 per cent of the country’s population are engaged in agriculture sector which is much higher than population share engaged in service and manufacturing sectors together amounting to 48 per cent. In spite of this, the share of agricultural population in national GDP stands at 18.1 per cent followed by service sector’s 26.3 per cent and manufacturing sector’s 55.6 per cent.”
Fisheries Director P Krishna Mohan in his speech exuded hope that the fishing policy drafted by the Government would help the people engaged in the sector. Subsidies worth of `2.5 lakh is provided for setting up of an aqua shop. The interest rate has also been reduced to four per cent on short-term loans ranging up to `3 lakh, he informed.
Among others, Director of Horticulture Dr Sanjiv Kumar Chada, Central Horticultural Experiment Station head Dr HS Singh, OUAT’s College of Agricultural & Engineering Technology Dean Dr Md Khalid Khan, Agro Promotion and Investment Corporation ltd’s Managing Director Om Kar and Dr Swati Mishra from MITS School of Biotechnology participated in technical session.
UCCI’s Forest and Environment Committee chairman Prabhakar Rout welcomed the guests and its Aquaculture, Food Processing chairman S Acharya chaired the two sessions. Similarly, UCCI secretary Debabrata Dash and its International Trade Committee chairman Rajen Padhi gave vote of thanks in the two sessions respectively.