CANACONA: Deputy Chief Minister and Agriculture Minister Chandrakant Kavlekar assured all the support to Canacona farmers to go organic.
“Once certified as organic, the agricultural produce will command a higher rate thereby increasing the revenue from its sale,” he said.
“Agricultural Department will spend 50 crore to develop 50 clusters of two lakh sqmts each in the State out of which Cotigao and Gaondongrem will get 10 and 5 clusters respectively making Canacona the biggest beneficiary,” informed Kavlekar, to the thunderous applause from the farmers.
He also assured to increase the rates of horticultural crop grown locally to make it more economically viable for the local farmers.
“At present we are paying 6 crore to the farmers from Belgaum each month for the vegetables we procure, it is the plan of the Agricultural Department to motivate the local farmers so that in near future Goa becomes self-sufficient and doesn’t have to buy from neighbouring State,” he added.
Deputy CM was the chief guest for a programme, which was attended by over 200 farmers from Cotigao, to promote organic farming and its certification conducted by South Zonal Agricultural Department in association with Zonal Agricultural Office Canacona and Agricultural Technology Management Agency (ATMA), at Cotigao Village Panchayat, recently.
Deputy Chief Minister Chandrakant Kavlekar and Art and Culture Minister Govind Gaude visited Canacona at the request of Canacona MLA Isidore Fernandes.
The programme which was initiated at the instance of Canacona MLA and Deputy Speaker Isidore Fernandes said that he was instrumental in getting Kavlekar into BJP as he felt that by sitting in Opposition no developmental work was possible in their respective constituencies.
Praising Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant, Fernandes said that the taxi and other issues were aptly handled and as per the Chief Minister’s assurance mining will also start soon.
Art and Culture Minister inspected the ongoing work of Ravindra Bhavan at Chaudi and Sanskruthi Bhavan at Gaondongrem.
The construction of the Ravindra Bhavan which had started in 2017 has already missed many deadlines and the local MLA being concerned about its completion requested the art and culture minister to see that the contractor expedites and completes the work soon.
Earlier, reacting to Fernandes’ plea, deputy CM assured that the foundation stone for Krushi Ghar at Sheller will be laid by next month.
