Vasco: Chief Minister Pramod Sawant may have rightly asked the young people of Goa to look at farming as a serious activity. But he and his Agriculture Minister now need to respond to a letter written by a young girl to his government.
The youngster, Valerie Afonso from Chicalim village, in her letter to the Director Agriculture, says she has enthusiastically participated in Agricultural activities and now wants to a dedicated Zonal Agricultural Office (ZAO) in Mormugao taluka.
Valerie in her letter dated July 7, 2020 wrote, “With Goa’s Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant urging people to take up farming, we have participated in the agricultural activity enthusiastically. Now, we youth would like to take a step forward in the same.”
She further added, “The accessibility of the current Zonal Agricultural Office, which is based in Margao, Salcete, is inconvenient for farmers from the Mormugao taluka. Being the oldest taluka of Goa, Mormugao doesn’t have its own ZAO yet. This prompts the farmers to lose out on important schemes and other basic requirements, hence forcing them to shell out money from their own pockets.”
One only hopes Valerie will not have to wait for another 30 years. Because, that is for how long Mormugao has been without a full-fledged ZAO.
Herald contacted Deputy Chief Minister and Agriculture Minister Chandrakant (Babu) Kavlekar; mentioning the letter written by the young girl, who echoed the sentiments of many agriculturists and farmers of the sprawling taluka.
He said that there are plans to set up a dedicated ZAO for Mormugao. “A discussion to set up ZAO in the govt premises or to build new infrastructure was held with the Director of Agriculture recently,” he added.
Kavlekar further stated that he is aware that for many years there is no ZAO for Mormugao taluka despite several villages being involved in agricultural activities. He stated that he has decided to set up one special dedicated ZAO for Mormugao taluka, which consists of four constituencies.
The project however had got delayed due to the recent CoVID19 pandemic.
Meanwhile, NGO GOACAN underlined the need for a full-fledged separate ZAO as part of the ‘Economic Revival Plan for Goa’, so that agriculture will get a boost and farmers from the taluka will be able to access seeds, manure and machinery from the Directorate of Agriculture.
GOACAN revealed that for the last three decades the agricultural programs, schemes etc of the Directorate of Agriculture for the Mormugao taluka have been managed by the ZAO Salcete Taluka, which is based in Margao. “It was indeed surprising to note that while the newly established Dharbandora taluka has a separate ZAO, Mormugao, one of the oldest talukas of Goa, still has a caretaker ZAO located at Margao”, GOACAN mentioned
