Tuesday, 24 January 2023 | PNS | DEHRADUN
The chief secretary SS Sandhu has said that promotion for setting up food processing units in the mountainous areas of the State on a large scale should be done . He said that the produce of mountainous areas gets wasted by absence of market, climatic conditions and disruption in the movement of the vehicles. The CS was presiding over a meeting of the horticulture and food processing department at the State secretariat on Monday. He said that the food processing units are our strengths and by setting up these units in the mountainous areas on a large scale the farmers would become free from the worry of the market on increase in production. He suggested that the private sector should be encouraged and the food processing units already working should be strengthened. This would give an impetus to economic activities in the mountainous areas and help in employment generation. Sandhu directed that focus should be made on cluster based poly-house. He said that prior arrangement of seeds, saplings and other raw materials should be made before taking up the poly-house project on a large scale. The CS said that any project would succeed only when the practical problems are identified and solved. He said that setting up of the market and taking the farmers and other stakeholders into confidence is necessary for prompting any scheme or product. The CS directed the officers to hold regular interactions with the farmers and other stakeholders and said that their problems should be solved.
On a stern note the CS said that the project should be completed on time.
The additional chief secretary (ACS) Anand Bardhan, secretaries Dilip Jawalkar, BVRC Purushottam, Pankaj Kumar Pandey, additional secretary, planning, Rohit Meena and horticulture director HS Baweja and others attended the meeting.
