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Dimapur, March 22 (EMN): The department of Agriculture selected 35 youths from different districts of the state and provided free training under Sub-Mission on Agricultural Mechanisation (SMAM) scheme at NER Farm Machinery Training and Testing Institute (NERFMTTI), Biswanath Chariali, Tezpur in Assam from March 8 to the 19th.
During the inaugural programme of the two-day valedictory session for the 35 trainees at Central store in Dimapur, additional director of Agriculture, C Peter Yanthan, encouraged the trainees and asked them ‘not to take advantage of the free training provided by the department, but take the opportunity and be fruitful’.
He mentioned that the agricultural land area in Nagaland had its limit but the demand for food was ever increasing due to population growth. He added that to feed the increasing population “we need to increase the productivity”.
“And this is where agriculture machinery takes the role to increase productivity and yield, however it is reported that farm power availability of the state is below the national average of 2.02 KW/Ha and SMAM aims to promote the usage of farm machinery and increase the ration,” he stated.
Further, he mentioned that the department had opened many farm machinery banks for custom hiring and had issued many farm machineries and equipment like tractor, power tiller, auger, brush cutter, etc. under the subsidy to the farming communities of the state.
Yanthan also informed that the trainees would be provided machineries under the condition that they were fruitful and providing services.
The department further informed that five more youths would be sent again for training as the target set was 40 youths.
The training provided to the youths was on ‘repair, maintenance, operation and management of farm machinery and equipment’.
The course aims to teach the constructional features of agriculture implements and farm machineries, maintenance and repair technique of different systems of agriculture tools, PP equipments and farm machineries, etc.
DAO, Adoi, also told the trainees that their service would be needed in the villages as farming machines were difficult to be transported to Dimapur for repairing. Therefore, “freelancing services should be given importance”, he said and encouraged them to publicise their service and then travel from village to village to repair machines, which will also become their source of earning.
Joint Director of Agriculture, Hewoto Sema, also expressed hope that the trainees would help the farmers through their works. He also mentioned that they can give loans in the form of cash or subsidy but it would depend on ‘how they manage their skills and services’.
Deputy Director of Agriculture (SMAM) Burwati Lkr also challenged the trainees to join the venture and provide service to the famers, which will also help the department.
Akalu, a trainee, shared about their 14 days training experience in Assam. He shared that they were given firsthand experience with all the machines and also expressed gratitude to the department for their initiative.
A technical session was also organised for the trainees where dealer and manufacturer companies interacted with the trainees. The resource persons were Anisul Islam, sale and service executive, and team from Ratnagiri Impex Pvt Ltd; Pragyan, territory sales manager, and team STIHL, and Saptarshi Choudhary, senior engineer, and team from VST Tillers and Tractor LTD. It was also informed that on March 23, there would be a test conducted for the trainees.