The overall budgetary allocation for the agriculture and horticulture sector in 2024-25 stands at Rs 427 crore, an increase of 16 per cent from the last year’s allocation of Rs 368 crore.
“The government will strengthen all existing interventions and invest in new interventions to achieve the goal of more than doubling the income of the 4.5 lakh farming households of the State,” Chief Minister Conrad Sangma said today while presenting the budget for 2024-25.
Stating that every block will have a PRIME hub to act as a food processing fulcrum for the area by 2028, Sangma said that in order to complete the construction of the ongoing 18 PRIME Hubs and build new PRIME Hubs and collective marketing centre, the government allocated Rs 100 crore for 2024-25.
He also said that the Floriculture Mission will be implemented to make Meghalaya the national leader in orchid production with an investment of Rs 250 crore over the next four years. Support to the tune of Rs 5-7 lakh per household will be provided in select clusters. For this mission, the allocation for 2024-25 is Rs 40 crore.
Sangma also said that the recently launched Meghalaya State Organic Mission aims at bringing 1 lakh hectares under organic cultivation by 2028 making the State the frontrunners in organic production. For 2024-25, the government allocated Rs 30 crore for this mission.
To provide long-term income security to our farmers, an additional 5,000 hectares of area expansion of pepper, coffee, cocoa and cinnamon is planned for the next two years. The total investments towards these interventions will be Rs 70 crore and for the financial year 2024-25 with an allocation of Rs 35 crore.
Sangma informed that the second tranche of FOCUS is already being released to eligible producer groups and an amount of Rs 100 crore is being allocated to provide the third tranche in 2024-25.
To increase farm productivity, the irrigation network of the State is being expanded by an additional 18,400 hectares and to achieve this, an amount of Rs 119 crore is being allocated.
