PNRD Minister Ranjeet Kumar Dass Attends Review Meeting of ASRLM in Guwahati

STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI: PNRD (Panchayat & Rural Development) Minister Ranjeet Kumar Dass attended a review meeting with ASRLM (Assam State Rural Livelihood Mission) officials here on Sunday. State Mission Director of ASRLM, Krishna Baruah gave a brief presentation on the progress and achievements of the mission.

The team of officials discussed various measures for rural development and socio-economic development of the villages, along with measures to promote self-employment of poor women of the villages, empowering the self-help groups. Also, discussions were made on measures to assist the unemployed youth of the villages to make them self reliant.

During the meeting, Minister Dass discussed the following points –

* Strawberry cultivation by SHG members should be emphasized and they should be supported to increase production.

* To reduce the use of imported Gamuchas made outside Assam, more Gamucha production must be done by SHGs to meet the required demand.

* The production of Eri and Muga should also be emphasized with the increase of value-added products.

* SHGs of women should further be motivated and facilitated as per their needs.

He added that as per the direction of the Prime Minister, organic farming should be taken up as a special intervention in the North East and especially Assam. In this connection, the targeted 20,000 bighas of land should be cultivated in mission mode by the SHGs. Up till now, as many as 7,347 bighas have already been covered for the same, he said. He also underlined that soil testing with the support of Krishi Vigyan Kendras should be initiated at the earliest.

The DDU- GKY Skill project for the rural youths and RSETI project for rural self-employment was also reviewed in details.

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