CM ASSURE roll out to safeguard farmers, 200 processing units coming up
Sohra, Jan 11: Meghalaya’s international tourism site, 54 kms from state capital Shillong in East Khasi Hills, on Friday became the power centre when the cabinet led by Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma and top bureaucrats landed at this famous tourist destination- once known to be the rainiest place on earth, not solely on a site-seeing tour of its mesmerizing waterfalls, living root bridges and caves, but to discuss and announce crucial decisions aimed at the development of the state and its people.
Over a warm brew of coffee and tea to beat the winter chill at the first Cabinet Retreat at Sohra, Conrad K Sangma’s government cleared several projects- most notably the announcement of the “CM ASSURE”- a market intervention scheme aimed at supporting farmers in times of agricultural crisis.
Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma said that multiple intervention is being made by the state government to support farmers. The CM Assure scheme will aid farmers in distress with the government procuring the non-perishable produces like broomstick, arecanut, etc for resale through its own marketing boards. He also said that through this programme, during distress in the market, the farmers will get the support, and hence the government has come up with this mechanism to help the farmers.
The scheme is aimed at supporting small and marginal farmers and provide fixed price procurement during market price decline to prevent distress sales. This scheme will be activated primarily during price drops, not necessarily an annual event, announced Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma.
“The government has decided to keep a corpus of ₹100 crore to intervene in these situations so that the farmers during distress are supported and helped,” said chief minister Conrad K Sangma after chairing the first cabinet meeting of the year at Sohra.
The corpus will facilitate procurement and cover administrative expenses of the scheme.
The state government will also get another ₹20 crore from Tribal Affairs Ministry to further support this programme, the chief minister said.
The declaration of a farmer’s project at a world famous tourism site was the perfect scenario where agriculture met sustainable tourism.
Conrad Sangma said challenges faced by broomstick and areca nut farmers will be particularly benefited by the new scheme.
He admitted a meeting with broomstick farmers two months ago when they narrated their problems triggered the thought of introducing the scheme.
Prices of broomsticks and areca nut have been very unstable in the past few years.
The chief minister also said that his government has been implementing multiple programmes and schemes to the support farmers including for perishable goods.
Over 200 processing units are coming up, including 30 large scale units wherein at least 5,000 farmers will be supported by the units. These schemes will be for perishable products that get converted to chips, powder, ice cream, etc.
“We are doing interventions for pineapple packaging and processing in Ri-Bhoi district,” the chief minister said, adding that a large ginger processing unit will come up in the district.
