Additional Chief Secretary (ACS), Agriculture Production and Farmer Welfare Department (AP&FWD), Atal Dulloo, today chaired maiden meeting of Agriculture sector to review progress on various centrally sponsored schemes and other flagship programmes being implemented in the division.“Our prime concern should be to enhance farmers’ income, raise them as socially and economically empowered community”, said the ACS while asking officers to explore and utilize all possible resources to supplement income of farm operating families.Saying that present time being the Kharief season, ACS emphasized upon the officers to work in coordination with the district administration particularly with irrigation department so that the farmer’s issues and concerns on this account could be redressed on priority.Dulloo exhorted upon the department to ensure effective implementation of all centrally sponsored schemes to boost the income of 7.5 lakh small and marginal farm operating families.
In this regard, he also underlined the importance of timely and judicious fund utilization.ACS asked the officers to identify projects under different centrally sponsored schemes so that they could be deliberated upon for necessary approval and thus implementation for larger interest of farming community.Dulloo highlighted the importance of synergy between the Agriculture University and department saying the research must be in line with the aspirations of farmers. He said the projects identified for GI tagging must be completed in a time bound manner. During the meeting, Director Agriculture, Kashmir, Chowdhary Mohammad Iqbal, gave a detailed power point presentation briefing about successful implementation of various central sponsored schemes across the division. He also highlighted status of different flagship programs, major achievements and initiatives of the department.Earlier, ACS visited various Agriculture schemes and installations including Floriculture farm, Medicinal and Aromatic section, Integrated Mushroom Development Centre, Kitchen Garden (Hi Tech Poly Houses), Quality Control Laboratory and Organic Vegetable Market at Agriculture Complex premises Lalmandi.Later, Atal Dulloo visited Bangund, Wanpora Organic Vegetable Clusters of Pulwama district and interacted with organic vegetable growers.