In an unique initiative and perhaps the first of its kind in the country, the Bihar Goverment has started a direct connect with the vegetable growers and people involved in farming of vegetables only.
The movement titled 'Sahkaari Se Tarkaari Vaarta' movement has been designed to facilitate the vegetable cooperative unions and federation to regularly monitor the pulse of the farming community and to provide the farmer members a much-needed opportunity to voice their concerns related to vegetable production, pricing and supply chain.
Vegfed Managing Director Anand Sharma said the 'Sahkaari Se Tarkaari Vaarta' is an unique initiative by the Vegfed which comes under the Bihar State Vegetable Processing and Marketing Scheme.
Sharma said with this initiative, the Bihar Cooperative Department is trying to move an inch closer to the farmers. So far such schemes benefitting the farmers are available for food grains, milk production and other agricultural produce. Some of the States like Maharashtra have dedicated initiatives for single vegetable produce like Onions but Bihar has become perhaps the first in the country to start an initiative for vegetable growers.
The scheme was launched early this week by Sharma under the guidance of Bandana Preyashi (IAS), who is the Secretary, Cooperative Department, Bihar Government and also the Chairperson of Vegfed Bihar.
Sharma said the pupose of the scheme is to direct talk with the growers and vegetable farmers, to understand their issues and then address
their grievances which will ultimately boost their morale.
“The State level officers as well as District Cooperative Officers (DCOs) of the Department are making efforts in keeping constant touch with the farmer members. Though the Covid-19 has limited the operation, the Department has not lost the zeal, feel and the essence of the Cooperative system,” said the 2013 batch IAS of Bihar cadre.
With community spread of COVID-19 is at its peak in the State and due to which there are restrictions on travel and physical gatherings across the state, hence to overcome these barriers and to ensure that the federation remains connected with the farmers, the “Sahkaari Se Tarkaari Vaarta” initiative started just in time as a preferred solution, said Preyashi on the occasion.
“Moreover, this will ensure uninterrupted execution of the scheme at all the three-tiers of the cooperative structure i.e. primary vegetable cooperative societies, unions and the federation,” Sharma told the Pioneer. Sharma has earlier served as District Magistrate in couple of districts of Bihar before taking over as MD Vegfed last year September.
The Bihar Government Department of Cooperative (DoC) has also been credited to become the first department in the State to digitise amidst the Covid-19 pandemic. The Department successfully turned into an e-office since June 16, 2020.
“We observe this step of the department aligning to the Jal-Jeevan-Hariyali Mission by making it a paperless system for conserving the forest and natural resources. The e-filing management system is supposed to bring in speedy, accuracy and accountability by cutting down the unwanted delays caused due to physical movement of file from one table to the other. Now the officers will have flexibility to work from home with ease and without any worry of physical transfer of documents,” Sharma who is also Joint Secretary in DoC said when asked about other new initiatives.