The Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today gave his nod for setting up ‘Marketing and Agri Business’ department under the Punjab Mandi Board for providing necessary backup support to the farmers of the state to ensure marketing of their produce. Disclosing this here today a spokesperson of the Chief Minister’s Office said that Mr. Badal has felt that though the hard working and resilient farmers of the state have consistently enhanced the production of food grains, vegetables & fruits, honey and others but there was a complete lack of proper marketing mechanism of their produce. Therefore, he had asked the Additional Chief Secretary (Development) to immediately constitute Marketing and Agri Business department under the Punjab Mandi Board for providing necessary support to the farmers of the state to ensure marketing of their produce.
Likewise, in an another significant decision, the Chief Minister has also gave his concurrence for setting up a ‘Think Tank’ for agriculture sector, on lines of FICCI, CII and others for industrial and commerce sector, to act as catalyst for promoting agriculture and allied farming sector. The proposed organization would dwell on the various issues confronted by the agriculture sector, policies of agriculture across the globe and issues of production, marketing and research to raise them at appropriate platform. Mr. Badal said that this ‘Think Tank’ should be exclusively a farmers’ organization which would be provided with necessary infra structure support including space for official accommodation along with a corpus fund by the state government, to make this upcoming organization self sustainable and economically viable.