State Agriculture Minister Brijmohan Agrawal on Monday said that a master plan had been prepared to provide subsidy for opening of cold storages by farmers.
The Minister said that he considers himself lucky that he got an opportunity to serve the farmers and always makes efforts to improve their living conditions.
He was addressing the members of Progressive Farmers' Union at village Khapri (Kumhari) in Durg district.
The Minister called upon the farmers to grow crops like fruits and vegetables apart from paddy and augment their family income.
State Agriculture Department, Horticulture Department and Indira Gandhi Agriculture University had been working in close co-ordination to improve the lot of farmers, Agrawal said.
He appreciated the efforts of Progressive Framers' Union in spreading awareness of improvised techniques in farming.
Notably, 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 and preservation infrastructure open ended, it stated.
Incidentally, on August 31, 2016 , 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 ` 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.