In an important move to provide assured income to the farmers, especially those who are still clinging to traditional agriculture produces like madua, jhingora, ramdana, chaulay and fafar, Chief Minister Harish Rawat has said that products like biscuit, namkeen and the likes made from organic mandua, chaulay, ramdana, fafar and jhingora in the State would be exempted from VAT. Hill Contract Farming Scheme would be started soon as barren land is available in the hilly areas in abundance thanks to the continuing trend of migration. He said this while meeting the officials of agriculture department at Bijapur guest house on Thursday.
He further said his government is focused on promoting traditional organic agriculture across the state by way of rural economy empowerment. CM directed the officials to prepare an organic traditional agriculture promotion scheme for promoting farming of Mandua, Chaulay, Ramdana, Fafar and Jhingora. We would finalise the standards soon to boost production of such indigenous crops, he said. The Mandua growers would be promoted based on the area where the seeds are sown while the rest of the crops would be promoted in terms of production.
CM directed the principal secretary Agriculture to ensure that the monitoring process regarding financial aid being paid to the suffering farmers whose crops were damaged recently continues. He informed that Union Government has not responded positively in this regard till date. But, underrated, the state government would help the farmers as much as possible despite limited resources. Every possible aid would be provided for the next crop, he said. Chief secretary N Ravishanker, additional chief secretary Rakesh Sharma, principal secretary Agricuture S Ramaswamy and other departmental officials were present at the meeting.