Guwahati, August 30 (PTI): Agriculture and allied sectors must be given priority to ensure improvement of Northeast’s economy, North East Council member C K Das said today. “Increase in per hectare productivity, multiple crop farming and farmers’ involvement in allied sectors is the need of the hour to realise the vision of the Prime Minister to double farmers’ income by 2022, specially in the Northeast,” Das said at the North East Rural Conclave 2017 here.
He also pointed out that the other potential areas in the Northeast include fishery and piggery and farmers should also consider cultivating products having high demand like lentils, coconut, black pepper, sugarcane etc.
Since the land holdings amongst farmers in the Northeast is less, formation of cooperatives is required to meet the market demand. He also highlighted the need for improving the CD Ratio in the region and also need for survey of lands.
Assam Skill Development Mission’s Project Director A P Tiwari said that there was an urgent need for packaging and processing of agriculture/horticulture products in the North East. He mentioned that products like betel nuts were being exported from Assam but there was no processing and packaging facility available for this product in Assam.
He also stressed that banana cultivation in the Northeast was in need to be popularised and should be marketed well like it was done in Bihar, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. “North East has human resources but no industry.
This is leading to exodus of human resources from Northeast to other parts of the country,” he said. The Conclave was organised by the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) in association with North East Council.
