Undertake field visits, Arunachal Deputy CM Chowna Mein tells Rubber Board

OUR CORRESPONDENT

ITANAGAR: Arunachal Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Chowna Mein on Wednesday urged the Rubber Board to undertake more field visits and to interact with the farmers of the State to know the actual problems faced by them in tapping, processing and marketing of their products.

During a meeting with Binoy Lukose N, joint production commissioner of Rubber Board here, the Deputy Chief Minister said that many farmers in the foothills in East Siang, Lower Dibang Valley, Lohit, Namsai, Changlang and Papumpare districts have taken up rubber plantation, which is in a mature stage but due to lack of buyers coupled with technical know-how for tapping, processing and marketing of the products, most of the farmers are no more interested to take up plantations.

"There is a large scope for expansion of rubber plantation in the State but first we must let the matured plantations to take-off and let the people see the benefits that derive from the rubber plantation in order to win the confidence of the farmers back and revive cultivation in the State," he said.

Mein requested the Board to impart training to the farmers in tapping and processing and organize awareness camps from time to time.

In the meeting, issues to facilitate farmers with post-harvest processing units like smoke house and rollers in feasible areas were also discussed.

He also asked the joint production commissioner to submit a concept paper for inclusion of rubber in the policy for plantation crop in the coming Budget.

Binoy was accompanied by development officer John V Zechariah, assistant development officer Summie Doye and vice-president (Head Business) from Harrison Malayalam Ltd, Kerala, Biju Panicker.

Among others, State trade & commerce director Sonyung Modi was also present in the meeting.

The Deputy Chief Minister during the day had also a fruitful discussion with Sanjeev Gayen, senior manager (Plantations) and Manoj Sharma, manager (Plantation) of Ruchi Soya Industries Ltd (Oil Palm Division), when they called on him.

He urged them to expedite the establishment of palm oil processing factory in the State to boost the confidence of the farmers to take up palm oil cultivation.

Informing that the State Government has kept a target of bringing 15,000 hectares of area under palm oil cultivation under National Mission for Edible Oil - Oil Palm scheme by the Centre, in the first year, he said that establishment of palm oil processing units need to be expedited to win the confidence of the farmer to take up plantations, who are reluctant to grow due to lack of marketing avenues.

Mein also asked them to tie-up with the nurseries of State agriculture and horticulture departments for production of saplings for distributing it to the farmers.

Gayen informed that currently the State has more than 3000 hectares under palm oil cultivation and yielding 20-30 tonne per hectare in its fourth year of cultivation, which is encouraging.

He further informed that the company is buying the palm oil from the farmers at Rs 8000 per tonne and further assured that once the approval by the State Government for the establishment of processing plant is granted, it would take only six months to establish the first factory of the company at Niglok in East Siang district.

The company is also planning to establish palm oil processing units at other areas of the State, for which,the MoU was signed in 2014.

Mein had another productive discussion with senior officials from Arunachal Pradesh State Council for Science and Technology for developing Science & Technology activities in the State and for establishment of one state-of-art orchidarium in the eastern part of the State for conservation and development of the orchid resources of the State, besides setting up of one space museum in collaboration with ISRO in the State.

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