Kohima, November 8 (MExN): A consultative meeting on plantation of large cardamom between Horticulture Department, Government of Sikkim and Rural Development Department, Government of Nagaland was held on November 7 at de Oriental Grand, Kohima.
The visiting team from Sikkim included Prem Chawang Bhutia, retained HDO, Government of Sikkim, TP Bhutia, Additional Director HCCDD, Rajan Thapa, Joint Director, HCCDD and Laxmi Prasad, Progressive Nursery Grower, Sikkim.
Addressing the meeting, Nagaland Rural Development Secretary, Kelei Zeliang said although the department has started cardamom plantation in the current year, it may not be very easy once cultivation starts as the fields have to be maintained for disease may crop in or different problems may come up. To avoid such problems, he said it is of utmost importance to have some knowledge on how to grow and maintain cardamom plants. Towards this end, Zeliang urged the horticulturists to teach the officers everything about the plantation so that the department can take up this project successfully in the following years too.
He also lauded the efforts of the Horticulture Department of Sikkim while maintaining that Sikkim is perhaps the only State in the entire North East region which is taking up cardamom plantation on a large scale.
Pointing out that Nagaland has different grassroots organizations implementing all the MGNREGA schemes of the RD department, RD Director, Metsubo Jamir said trying to teach this technology to a department like Rural Development will not be easy, he however hoped that through this initiative even the department would also give efforts to propagate cardamom plantation besides the State’s Horticulture department.
He also felt that taking the initiative to collectively take up such schemes, the NE region will make an impact in the country’s production map.
Through PowerPoint presentation, the team from Sikkim educated the officers on how to identify the several prominent varieties of cardamom plants, soil suitability, irrigation management, different methods to curing and marketing strategies etc.
During the interactive session, the team from Sikkim answered queries and cleared doubts raised by the participating officers.
The meeting was attended by all Joint Directors of RD department, Project Directors, Deputy Directors and BDOs from all blocks. The Sikkim team will also be visiting cardamom plantation in Phek and Peren districts.
