The Government has initiated several measures in order to boost farm sector and farmers in particular. The steps hold importance looking at the target to double the income of the people dependent on this.
Holding a review meeting on Thursday, Chief Minister Raghubar Das directed the Agriculture Department to go for a chain of cold storages located in rural areas of the State.
“As many as 25 cold storages would be opened in Jharkhand which would benefit the famers immensely. Also, the Department should work in organising Gram Chaupals on regular basis where ways would be found out for implementation of ongoing farm related schemes and new ideas can be generated as well,” said the CM and directed his Cabinet colleagues to attend the Chaupals.
later, the Cabinet went on sanctioning Rs 46.32 crore for 5000 MT capacity cold storages in six districts. “The Cabinet has provided fund for building cold storages for storing the produces of the famers in lohardaga, Bokaro, Chatra, East Singhbhum, Palamu and Sahibgunj of 5000 MT capacity each. Also, an amount for four cold storages approved during previous financial year has also been revised with Rs 30.91 crore,” said Agriculture Minister Randhir Singh briefing about the Cabinet decisions along with Home Secretary SKG Rahate. The warehouses are coming up in Deoghar, Giridih, Ranchi and Gumla.
In another related decision, the Cabinet approved building 100 MT capacity godowns in every panchayat under PACS. 500 PACS are already under process to build the warehouses and on Thursday land for 271 more got identified along with sanctioning Rs 44 crore for that purpose.
In the review meet, the CM was particular about looking for allied activities for the community such as floriculture and directed officials to run a new scheme for that in Deoghar, Ranchi, Simdega and other adjoining areas. The review meeting was called to examine the schemes in operation under the existing financial year as well as the upcoming one in accordance with announcements made into Budgets presented by the State and the Centre.
Coming to health and education sectors, the CM told the concerned officials to make sure availability of medicines in every health centre across the State all the time, especially in rural areas. As per the announcement made by him a few days ago, Raghubar Das said that three schools in the lines of the Netarhat Residential School, would become operational in Dumka, Chaibasa and Ranchi from April 1 this year.
The CM also directed officials to complete required processes for commencing the announcements made in the Budget so that those can be brought into pipelines from April. He was particular about greater expenditure, especially under welfare schemes and setting up coordination with officials at district levels.
The CM, on the occasion, also underlined some of the areas such as providing electricity to every household by Diwali, connecting every village with road, declaring entire State OFD by 2018, opening Eklavya school in tribal areas, building check dams and smaller ponds as priority and instructed officials of the concerned Departments to keep a tab on those.
“The Government is committed to provide medical facilities to all. Shortage of doctors and medical staffs would be met. 561 posts of doctors in medical colleges have been sanctioned and the process for 1124 more is under process,” said the CM. He also reviewed functioning of ‘108’ ambulance service, repairing of hand pumps and setting up food processing units.
In the meeting, Ministers Neelkanth Singh Munda, CP Singh, louis Marandi, Neera Yadav, Ramchandra Chandravansi, Randhir Singh, Amar Kumar Bauri along with Chief Secretary Rajbala Verma, Development Commissioner Amit Khare, Principal Secretary to the CM Sunil Kumar Barnwal and Secretaries of other departments were present.