Tura July 20: Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma today inaugurated the M/s Megha Feed Mill at Haripur, Selsella Block in West Garo Hills. The Chief Minister was accompanied by local MLA, Selsella, Ferlin C. A. Sangma, MLA,Phulbari, S.G. Esmatur Mominin, MLA, Rajabala, Abdus Saleh and senior Government officials.
The initiative under the Piggery Mission of the Government is set up to address the constraint of feed supply in the region especially in Garo Hills region with an objective of providing nutritious feed for the cattle and pigs in the region.
The unit is facilitated on entrepreneurship mode by the Haripur IVCS Ltd. Selsella, promoted by MBMA under MLAMP Project of IFAD and Government of Meghalaya.
M/s Megha Feed Mill has a capacity of producing 1000 kg feed in 1 hour with raw materials used in the feed ranging from rice bran, maize, wheat bran, mustard cake, mineral mixer and salt.
The feed mill has been installed with financial support of ₹19.34 lakhs under Piggery Mission of the Government of Meghalaya and ₹21 lakhs as contribution by the society.
Speaking to the gathering during the inauguration the Chief Minister assured continued support to the farming community with farmer centric schemes and policies while at the same time urging the people to avail the benefits of the different initiatives of the Government.
During his visit the Chief Minister also distributed cheques amounting to ₹50,50,000 to 60 farmer producer groups of Selsella block as part of the Government’s flagship Farmers’ Collectivisation for Upscaling of Production and Marketing Systems (FOCUS), at Namabilla Kasiapara.
The FOCUS programme is aimed at increasing production, improve productivity, facilitate credit linkages and strengthen access to markets for the producers engaged in activities such farming, livestock rearing and related activities.
During the programme the Chief Minister took the opportunity to inform the people about the benefits of the scheme.
‘In the last two years the Covid pandemic had an unprecedented effect on our farming sector. Our farmers had to face a lot of hardships. The present Government conceptualised this scheme to assist our farmers financially to upscale their farming and income generation activities. It is perhaps one of the largest farmers welfare programme in the entire North East’, he added.
The Chief Minister also informed that 2.25 lakh beneficiaries out of the target 4.5 lakh beneficiaries have received benefits through the scheme while also urging the farmers to form producer groups to avail the scheme.
The Chief Minister also said that people’s response to the scheme has been very good and based on the positive feedback the Government is exploring the feasability to continue the programmme in the coming years.
