The Chhattisgarh State Cooperative Marketing Federation (MARKFED) — an apex federation of cooperative marketing societies — will be undertaking commercial operations of agricultural produce to help farmers get better price advantage for their produce, officials said.
The Federation already executes the work of paddy procurement under Price Support Scheme and supply of chemical fertilizers and plant protection material to the farmers of the State as per directives of the State Government.
MARKFED Chairman Radhakrishna Gupta had also recently announced that the Federation would construct a Commercial Complex in the premises of Nutan Kisan Rice Mill in Raipur at a cost of Rs 100 crores.
He said that 10 Kisan rice mills in the State would also be modernised to increase their storage capacity.
Gupta said that in the ongoing Kharif season, a target had been set to store 6.5 lakh tonnes of chemical fertilizers.
On the other hand notably, five cities of Chhattisgarh now have the Core-PDS system implemented involving a total of 484 ration shops, officials informed.
Chhattisgarh has achieved 100 per cent digitisation of the Public Distribution System (PDS) beneficiaries database.
There are 23 other states in the country which have also achieved 100 per cent digitization of the PDS database, officials stated.
Moreover, the Chhattisgarh Government is now also preparing a plan to use Aadhaar cards to identify Public Distribution System (PDS) beneficiaries.
It has prepared a comprehensive action plan for ensuring total transparency in the preparation of ration cards besides evolving a mechanism for error-free identity of Public Distribution System (PDS) beneficiaries.
Under the action plan, the mobile, bank account and Aadhaar numbers of the beneficiaries are being collected.
Chhattisgarh’s Public Distribution System (PDS) model has gram panchayats, co-operative societies and women's self help groups (SHGs) operating the fair price shops, officials stated.
About 90 % of the masses are covered under Food and Nutrition Security Act was implemented in 2013, officials stated.
Chhattisgarh’s PDS under Antyodaya and Priority families schemes provides 35 kg foodgrains at Re 1 per kilo. Since June 2014 single member category ration card-holders under destitutes segment are provided 10 kg food grains free of cost.
A total of 14 Agricultural Produce marketing yards in Chhattisgarh have been connected to Centre’s e-NAM project so far, officials informed.
A total of 585 markets across the country are targeted for integration to e-NAM by March, 2018, out of which 455 markets from 13 States have been integrated so far. The details are given below. For this purpose, financial assistance of Rs. 30 lakh per market is given. This has been increased to Rs.75 lakhs per mandi in Union Budget for 2017-18. In addition the software and a mandi analyst for a year is also provided to each mandi.
The Chhattisgarh Government has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) to develop clusters for providing a major push to Agri products exports from the State.
There is a plan to create a ‘cluster’ for horticultural crops in common geographical locations with a view to selecting the best produce for their packaging and their processing for the exports market, officials informed.
APEDA would assist the Government in finding exports markets to sell the produce.
For this, the Government has chosen three key horticulture producing locations in which papaya, bananas and vegetables are grown.
For papaya and bananas, Durg, Bemetara ,Raipur, Bilaspur and Rajnandgaon districts have been chosen whereas for vegetables, Durg, Bemetara, Raipur, Bilaspur, Rajnandgaon, Balod, Surguja, Bastar and Raigarh had been identified.
It may also be recalled that the Chhattisgarh Government has prepared a five-year master plan to provide a fillip to the cultivation of horticulture based crops in the State.
The master plan is for the period 2017-18 to 2021-22, officials informed.
Horticulture is a sunrise sector in the State. The Horticulture crops cover an acreage of 7.41 lakh hectares and production is about 85.95 lakh metric tonnes, officials informed.
The acreage under horticulture crops had increased several times since 2004-05.
According to the master plan, the target is to increase acerage of horticulture crops by about 4.52 lakh hectares. The increase in acerage will cover fruits, vegetables, masala (spices) crops and flowers.
Under the Central Government's Micro-Irrigation Mission Project about 75,000 hectares land had been brought under micro-irrigation in Chhattisgarh. The proposal is to bring in additional 2.34 lakh additional land under the micro-irrigation during the next five years.
An additional investment of Rs 1,405 crore is likely to be incurred on the project. Farmers will be trained in the processing of horticulture crops.
Additional training centers in production of horticulture crops will be established under the Private Partnership Plan (PPP), officials informed.
Agriculture expert teams also will visit all the villages in the State and guide the farmers. About 30,000 farmers and 185 employees will be trained in the coming years and 100 farmers will be sent overseas on a study tour.
The Horticulture Department officials said that under the Post-Harvest Management, a network of cold storages and pack houses will be established to prevent the damage of perishable commodities like fruits, vegetables and flowers in the entire State.
About Rs 90.81 crore is likely to be invested in the project. Green Houses, shed net houses, mulching will be established at a cost of Rs 321 crore.
To encourage mechanization of Horticulture, 20 Horse Power tractors, rotavator, power spryer, light trap instruments will be supplied to the farmers at a cost of Rs 16.74 crore. Honey bee industry will be doubled in due course of time. There is a proposal to invest Rs 6.40 crore in the rearing of honey bees .
Prime Minister Crops' Insurance Scheme will help farmers to cover up the losses. About 90 nurseries out of 122 nurseries will be upgraded. The vegetables are grown on 4.14 lakh hectares of land.
Ten minor and three major Plug Type Vegetable Seedling Units are operating at present. An additional 20 minor and 10 major units will be established soon. Ten lakh saplings will be planted every year.
There are immense possibilities in growing mangoes, guavas, lemon, Amla, Pomegranate, berries, custard apple, litchi, 'Naspati', Peech, Plumes and the acreage will be increased by 1.37 lakh hectares every year.
A Mother Tree Resource Center will be developed at Naya Raipur for the benefit of farmers. A State-level Training Center will be established to introduce farmers to high-grade plants.
As many as 22 food processing units in Chhattisgarh received total Central assistance of Rs 2.48 crores during the financial year 2015-16, officials informed.
The funds were received by the food processing units under the scheme for Technology Upgradation, Establishment and Modernisation exercises.
It may be recalled that the Central government is making all out efforts to draw Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) under its ‘Make In India’ programme for drawing investment in the Mega Food Park being set up in Chhattisgarh's Dhamtari district in an area of 68.68 hectares.
In a section titled “Projects Ready for Procurement in FY 2016-17” in its “Make in India Investment Book”, which had been circulated in Indian Missions abroad, the Centre had mentioned that work on the project started in 2015 with the anticipated project completion time line of 2018-19.
It mentioned that the Mega Food Park intends to provide modern infrastructure facilities for the food processing units along the value chain from farm to market.
Notably, the Centre's Scheme of mega Food Parks is aimed at providing modern infrastructure facilities along the value chain from farm gate to the market with strong backward and forward linkages. It is expected to facilitate the efforts to increase the level of processing of agricultural and horticultural produce, with particular focus on perishables, in the country and thereby to check the wastage.
The Scheme has a cluster based approach based on a hub and spokes model.
It includes creation of infrastructure for primary processing and storage near the farm in the form of Primary Processing Centres (PPCs) and Collection Centres (CCs) and common facilities and enabling infrastructure at Central Processing Centre (CPC).
A total of five agriculture mandis in Chhattisgarh have been connected to Center’s ‘e-NAM’ platform so far during the first phase of the project, the Central Government has informed.
The e-NAM platform is connected to 250 markets across 10 States as of now notably--Andhra Pradesh (12), Chhattisgarh (05), Gujarat (40), Haryana (36), Himachal Pradesh (07), Jharkhand (08), Madhya Pradesh (20), Rajasthan (11), Telangana (44), Uttar Pradesh (67).
So far, 1, 53,992.7 MT of agriculture produce worth Rs 421 crore has been transacted on e-NAM platform and 1,60,229 Farmers, 46,688 Traders and 25,970 Commission Agents have been registered on the e-NAM platform in the country.
Quality parameters for 69 agricultural and horticultural commodities including cereals, Pulses, Oil seeds, Spices, Fruits and Vegetables have been notified for trading on e-NAM platorm, officials informed.
States have been asked to set up the quality assaying facilities to ensure quality assessment of the farmer’s produce in a scientific and professional manner.
The provision of online payment of the sale proceeds to the farmers is made available in the e-NAM portal and States are requested to encourage direct transfer of sales proceeds to the farmer’s bank account.
