Manipur CM discusses welfare schemes for farmers with Union minister

Our Correspondent
Imphal, Sep. 7 (EMN): Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh on Tuesday said that a total of 30,284 Kisan Credit Card (KCC) have been issued out of the state’s total beneficiaries of 6,04,300.

Biren Singh was speaking at a video conference with Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Narendra Singh Tomar and state CMs on initiatives and schemes for farmers’ welfare, according to a press release from CM’s Secretariat.

On the Pradhan Mantri Kihan Samman Nidhi (PM-Kisan) and saturation of KCC, he further added that a proposal for matching 8,179 PM-Kisan beneficiaries has been sent to the bank concerned for grant of KCC loan.

In his presentation, Biren Singh extended a proposal relating to the Agriculture Infrastructure Fund stating that it would be easier to uplift the agricultural entrepreneurs, if the fund could be made available to the state, as the state govt. had started providing loans to start-ups on agriculture.

On the National Farmers Database with connectivity to state land records database, he informed that digitisation of land records in Manipur was in good progress and placed the status of computerisation for certain districts.

Regarding the status of National Mission on Oilseeds and Oil palm (NMOOP), the CM stated that the state govt. has constituted a sub-committee (Oil Palm Manipur) to oversee successful implementation of the oil palm project. Moreover, to test the suitability and economic viability of the crop, adaptive trials of 0.25 hectare has been conducted in 22 different locations. Identification and acquisition of land for about 30 hectares for Oil Palm nursery at Jiribam is in progress and likely to be finalised soon, he added.

It may be mentioned that the objectives of virtual conference were to highlight salient features of Atmanirbhar Krishi for Atmanirbhar Bharat strategy and role of the states, setting up of dedicated state teams with strong leadership to implement national programmes with state’s specific inputs, enabling states to enhance farmers’ incomes and state GDP and knowledge sharing amongst states and centre of new and innovative initiatives and develop a spirit of collaboration.