News Desk: “The state government is striving to provide dignity to the farmers of the state and the new appointees must dedicate themselves towards making agriculture glamorous so that the young generation aspires to take up farming. Lots of irregularities took place in implementation of Pradhan Mantri Kishan Sanman Nidhi scheme in the state and no one, who embezzled the money meant for the farmers, would be spared.
The new ADOs will have to shoulder that responsibility of ensuring that no such corrupt practices take place in future’’, Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal asserted this while distributing appointment letters to 111 Agriculture Development Officers (ADO) under Agriculture Department at a programme held at Srimanta Sankardev Kalakshetra today.
Referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call for doubling farmers’ income by 2022, Chief Minister Sonowal urged the new appointees to take up the mantle of strict and proper implementation of schemes like Fasal Bima Yojana, Soil Health Card, PM Kisan, Kishan Credit Card etc. for bringing rapid development in agriculture and allied sectors. He called on the newly recruited ADOs to guide the farmers and solve their problems while making them aware about latest technologies in the field of Agriculture.
Congratulating the newly recruited 111 ADOs for the opportunity to serve the farming community of the state, the Chief Minister informed that Agriculture Department would recruit additional 3189 personnel including Agricultural Extension Officers, Village Level Extension Workers (VLEW) etc while 157 technical recruitments would be made by the department including junior engineers within this year itself.
Recalling his visit to Vietnam with progressive farmers of the state, the Chief Minister informed that Vietnam could script success stories in agriculture and its allied sectors because the agri-scientists and officials worked as a team with the farmers to utilize their available resources to the maximum while adopting innovative technologies. He said that Assam’s conducive climate and fertile lands hold equally immense potential like Vietnam to initiate agriculture revolution and he urged the new appointees to implement their ideas and teachings in the field so that Assam could chart newer territories of rapid agricultural progress.
Informing that Assam did business of Agricultural products worth Rs. 357 crore during the 70 days of lockdown period, Sonowal said that due to the state government’s initiative Assam’s farmers could export their produce to the markets of London, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Singapore etc. He also shed light on steps taken by state government like providing Rs. 5000 to 4.5 lakh farmers for buying agricultural equipment under Mukhya Mantrir Krishi Sa-Sajuli Yojana, distributing a tractor to each of 26 thousand villages under CMSGUY, providing 48 thousand shallow pumps to the farmers of the state etc.
The Chief Minister also urged the ADOs to create success stories in agriculture sector by maintaining close relations with the farming community so that they could be provided guidance to utilize their CMSGUY tractors for doubling income and for deriving benefit of steps like setting up of 100 Farmers’ Producers Company in the state by the government for ramping up agricultural production. He stressed on the need to uphold values of sincerity and honesty in discharging their duties and turn the COVID-19 crisis situation into opportunity for rapid economic development though agriculture.
Referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call of ‘local-vocal-global’ to encourage local businesses and products, Sonowal urged the new appointees to utilize their ideas and knowledge in strengthening the ‘production-procurement-cold storage-marketing’ chain. He called on them to conduct market surveys in their areas for providing market linkage to the farmers to sell their products as without guarantee of minimum price, young generation would not venture into farming.
Agriculture Minister Atul Bora, in his address, put a lot of emphasis on farm mechanization initiatives undertaken by his department and urged the new ADOs to abstain from applying or transfer as no such pleas would be considered. He asked them to put in best efforts to revolutionize the sector.
Deputy Speaker of Assam Legislative Assembly Aminul Hoque Laskar, MP Dr Rajdeep Roy, Principal Secretary of Agriculture Department Rajesh Prasad also spoke at the programme which attended by Media and Legal Advisers to the Chief Minister Hrishikesh Goswami and Shantanu Bharali among others.
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