NE to showcase organic products across India

Guwahati: Organic products of the northeast would soon be showcased across India for which a modern dynamic marketing apparatus will be set up, Union minister Jitendra Singh said on Friday.

Singh said the Ministry of Development of North-Eastern Region (DoNER) will make suitable arrangements for showcasing the organic products of the northeast in the rest of India.

“An initiative in this direction has already begun with the opening up of a showroom-cum-restaurant bearing a common brand name ‘ONE’ (Organic North East) at Dilli Haat in New Delhi,” he said chairing a meeting of North Eastern Regional Agricultural Marketing Corporation (NERAMAC) here on Friday. The DoNER minister said the high priority accorded to the northeast by the NDA government is evident from the fact that Prime Minister Narendra Modi chose to observe the completion of three-years of government in this region. He said it is under the present government that Sikkim was declared as the first ‘organic state’ of India and a roadmap for developing the entire region as an organic hub of India has been envisaged, an official statement said.

Emphasising on the importance of developing the agri- horticulture ecosystem of the northeast, Singh said NERAMAC must take up the responsibility of carrying forward this mission and build a modern dynamic marketing apparatus for the purpose.

He said, in the absence of organized ‘Mandis’ in most parts of the northeast, one of the priority activities of NERAMAC should be to act as an aggregator of agri-horti produce in the region, particularly when 80-82 per cent of the agri-horti produce from the region happens to be organic in nature.

The minister said people in other parts of the country are yet to be introduced to the rich and exclusive organic produce of the northeast and once this happens, they would spontaneously come looking for it. (PTI)