Port Blair, Dec 08: Mr. Ajoy Bairagi, State President, BJP – A & N Islands and National Executive Member BJP, Mr. Vishal Jolly met Union Agriculture Minister & Farmers Welfare, Narendra Singh Tomar and the Minister of State Adarniya Kailash Choudhary today at New Delhi. Both the leaders placed, highlighted & discussed the several issues pertaining to Farmers & Agriculture of Islands such as Providing Minimum Support Price for COPRA, by taking up the matter with National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd and also by involving all recognized Procurement Agencies.
Issue of including Arecanut as a Crop for ensuring the same under PM Fasal Bima Yojna.
Allotment of land to all those settlers and other allotters of whose respective lands were washed away by passage of time, due to river/stream bank erosion.
All these issues were patiently heard by the Ministers and after lengthy discussion, the Minister held discussion with the concerned authority of NAFED and instructed them to immediately form a team to convene meeting with the recognized procurement agencies and chalk out plans for providing MSP for COPRA, throughout A & N Islands.
The Ministers also assured that the Arecanut would soon be included as a crop within the purview of PM- Fasal Bima Yojna at the earliest.
In so far as the issue of loss of land due to soil erosion is concerned, the Ministers assured that soon a committee would be formed to conduct a detailed survey for proper assessment of the loss of land.