SHILLONG: Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, Radha Mohan Singh has castigated the State Government for not utilising funds meant for irrigation for farmers in the State.
Addressing the inaugural function of the four-day agri-fair with the theme “Drive to doubling income of Tribal Farmers in the North East India” at ICAR on Saturday, Singh lamented that a fund of Rs 1.4 crores was given to Meghalaya for water irrigation programme in the year 2015-16.
“Out of these funds, again Rs 32 lakh was not spent in 2016-17,” he said
Urging the Meghalaya Government to speed up the expenditures under the Central Government schemes, Singh said that the State Government was again given more than Rs 2 crores in 2017-18 but as per report, not even a single paise has been utilised.
According to Singh, 90 per cent of the funds are coming from Centre while the State contributes 10 per cent but still funds are not being utilised here.
“Meghalaya Government should expedite the schemes for the farmers but somewhere there is stinginess on the part of the Government,” he said while pointing out more than 2 lakh soil health cards have been distributed in Meghalaya.
Earlier, he appreciated ICAR Research complex for NEH Region, Umiam for leading basic, strategic and applied research specific to the farming problems of the NEH Region.
He even lauded the efforts of ICAR, NEH Region in launching the programme to double the income of the farmers on a pilot basis in the villages adopted by them in the next five years.
Meanwhile, the Minister also did not leave the opportunity to turn the meeting into a political meeting as he slammed the Congress Government at the Centre while he praised the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi.
He said that a family was ruling the country for so long while adding that some people are having problem as the son of a poor man, Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister of the country.
He also said that the Central Government was investing in every sector of the region and development works were going on in a very fast manner in Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Assam.
Meanwhile, there were many farmers in the programme who could not understand the speech as the Minister spoke in pure Hindi language.
The Regional Agriculture Fair (RAF) during the four days will give special focus on finding ways and solutions to sustain income security from prevalent traditional form of agriculture and also initiate the revolution of doubling the farmers’ income in the NE region. This event will help to create an opportunity for the various stakeholders at regional level to exchange ideas, knowledge and experiences for effective transfer of technology.