Guwahati, Mar 27 : Though Assam is primarily an agriculture-based State, it has to buy rice worth about Rs 900 crore daily from outside the State. The daily requirement of rice in Assam is 12,000 metric tonnes, and 17 per cent of this is bought from outside the State.
Informing the State Assembly of this while replying to a question from BJP Legislature Party leader Mission Ranjan Das, Assam Argiculture Minister Pramila Rani Brahma today said during the last three/four years production of rice was less in the State due to various reasons like floods and drought, lack of assured irrigation and dependency on rainfall, non-availability of flood-tolerant winter rice and cold-tolerant, short-duration summer rice varieties, lack of adequate credit support, decrease in cultivable land area due to siltation and deposition of sand, gradual decrease in productivity of soil, and inadequate market infrastructure leading to widening of the demand-production gap of the commodity. “To bridge the gap, we have taken steps like development of mechanization and irrigation, strengthening of input and credit delivery mechanism, creating buffer stock of seeds for natural calamity, implementation of the National Food Security Mission (NFSM) in 13 districts of the State, implementation of seed village program from the current financial year, strengthening of price support and market information etc,” she said.
On the vast difference between vegetable prices at the places of their production and Guwahati, the minister said to minimize the gap, the Government is contemplating on providing transport subsidy to the farmers so as to enable them to bring their produce to Guwahati markets instead of selling the produce to middlemen at throwaway prices. “The Government is ready to extend 33 per cent subsidy to entrepreneurs willing to set up fruit and vegetable preservation units, mini cold storage etc in the State,” she added.
It may be mentioned here that as on March 17 this year, the prices of brinjal were Rs 5 to Rs 6 at Sorbhog, Rs 4 to Rs 5 at Barpeta Road, Rs 2 at Mandia and Rs 14 at Ganeshguri in Guwahati. Likewise, the prices of potato were Rs 5.30 to Rs 6.50 at Sorbhog, Rs 5 to Rs 6 at Barpeta Road, Rs 4.50 at Mandia and Rs 8 at Ganeshguri in Guwahati. Such vast differences were seen in the prices of tomato, cabbage, cauliflower, pea and carrot at Sorbhog, Barpeta road and Mandia from that at Ganeshguri in Guwahati.
TS
