The State Agriculture Department has distributed as many as 8.34 lakh packets of organic fertilisers to the farmers of the State.
The Department is now preparing to distribute 11.50 lakh packets to the farmers, officials stated.
Notably, Chief Minister Raman Singh unveiled the organic rice brand ‘Aadim’ in this insurgency infested district at Javanga Village in October this year.
Significantly, a group of farmers of the district are working on the production of the organically cultivated rice.
Singh while addressing a huge number of people at the village had stated that the efforts made on promoting education and organic farming in Dantewada district is now gaining popularity across the globe. As many as 450 farmers engaged in organic farming were felicitated by the Chief Minister on the occasion.
The Chief Minister on the occasion also conveyed Navratri greetings to the villagers and announced the setting up of Primary Health Centers at Javanga and Chindnar villages.
Moreover, he said that students, teachers and staff at Education City, Javanga may soon be able to access banking facilities.
He dedicated works worth Rs 118.87 crore by laying the foundation stone and inaugurating some projects. Also, he inaugurated a Rehabilitation Building for the Naxal affected families.
Interestingly, Dantewada is the only district of the country wherein organic farming is done within an area of a hectare.
Singh assured to make all possible efforts to promote the organic rice produced by the farmers.
He felt that the organic rice of Dantewada can prove to be a competition for many districts of Punjab and Uttarakhand States.
As per the official data available, the State produced 56.98 lakh metric tonnes of vegetables during 2014-15 which was five per cent more than previous year.
Similarly, 21.55 lakh metric tonnes of fruits were cultivated in Chhattiagarh during 2014-15 which was 10 per cent more than the previous year.
In this context, the cold chain capacity created by the Union Ministry of Food Processing Industries in Chhattisgarh stood at 8500 metric tonnes (MT) till April 2015, officials stated.
In a power point presentation on Prospects of Cold Chain Infrastructure in Eastern Region on April 6, 2015, the Ministry has spelled out its plans of taking up a total of 500 Integrated Cold Chain projects as per the modified pattern of the Central assistance during the next five years across the country to create capacity of 2.5 million tonnes.
The core objective of the projects is to make the scheme of cold chain value addition nd preservation infrastructure open ended, it stated.
Incidentally, on August 31 this year, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh had directed officials to draw an action plan for operating a State-level ‘Food Processing Mission’ in the State.
Chairing a meeting of the State Industry Department at the office in his residence in Raipur, the Chief Minister said that as per the recommendations of the 14th Finance Commission, the State would run the ‘Food Processing Mission’ while using its own resources.
He said that the State government has made a provision of Rs 12 crore for launching the State-level ‘Food Processing Mission’.
Singh said that the launching of Mission would help farmers get better prices for their farm produce and also open new job avenues for youth in the Food Processing sector.
Officials attending the meeting said that Food Processing Sector in Chhattisgarh is being seen as a ‘focus sector’ to ensure industrial diversity.
The Chhattisgarh government will also now promote use of solar photo voltaic power plants in cold storages in a bid to conserve huge quantum of energy consumed by such facilities in the State, officials stated.
The project is to be implemented by Chhattisgarh Renewable Energy Development Agency (CREDA), officials stated.
The solar power plant having 50 Kw minimum capacity would be installed in a cold storage in the State meant for storing fruits, vegetables and flowers.
The cold storage would also be connected to a ‘remote monitoring’ mechanism and the data would be viewable in a desktop or even smart phones.