Dimapur, September 9 (MExN): Nagaland Minister for Agriculture and Cooperation, G Kaito Aye on Friday addressed the two-day National Conference of State Cooperation Ministers in New Delhi.
In his speech, Minister Kaito said that owing to the remoteness and political unrest in the State of Nagaland, the consecutive Five-Year Plans targeted towards infrastructure development did little to create any tangible infrastructure development. “As such, the state of Nagaland in particular and the North Eastern region in general has lagged behind in infrastructure development. There is hardly any cooperative institute or organization of repute from the region,” he stressed.
He highlighted that one area that needs immediate attention is dairy sector. There are only three district level Milk Union, and the rest of the 13 districts do not have any dairy infrastructures. Absences of support for dairy activities have stopped the cattle farmers to grow economically, and are lagging behind their counterparts. “There is so much potential to invest in dairy development in the state,” he stated.
The Minister also said that in the recent years, the Nagaland state government has taken advantage of the social capital and initiated ‘One Village, One Cooperative Society,’ where each household is represented in the cooperative society. “This society is the economic counterpart of the village panchayat, and provides all credit and non-credit services to its members,” he stated.
He affirmed that the National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC) has been the only consistent development partner in the State and has played a part in filling-in the financial gaps. Since 1990s, NCDC has played an active role in assisting the nascent cooperative movement in the state. The State is presently implementing Integrated Cooperative Development Project (ICDP) in 5 districts since 2018-19 and is benefitting 786 Cooperative Societies with 36,317 members. “It is desired that compact area development schemes like ICDP should be continued with vital back-end subsidies,” he said.
The Minister highlighted that the only cooperative Bank (the Nagaland State Cooperative Bank Ltd) is a non-scheduled bank, making it ineligible to access AIF and other similar schemes. “It is unfortunate, till date no sanction has been issued against AIF in Nagaland,” he stated.
Further, Kaito said that “the state-specific land holding system restrains the farmers to access the much-needed Credit from the limited banking sectors in the state.”
He expressed hope that through this conference, “there will be a special policy for the North Eastern Region, especially focussing on cooperative infrastructure development and creation of organic value chain for agri and horticulture products, as was envisioned during the recent celebration of Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav in Dimapur, Nagaland.”
The two-day conference held on September 8 and 9 was attended by Minister Agri & Cooperation, Government of Nagaland, Commissioner & Secretary Cooperation, RCS Nagaland & DRCS Nagaland.
