Although Meghalaya has shown its reluctance to the Centre’s push for oil palm plantation, the State has a potential area of 1,22,637 hectares for plantation of oil palm.
According to official sources, the potential area is located in four districts of the State mostly in Garo Hills. The potential area was assessed by the Reassessment Committee of ICAR- Indian Institute of Oil Palm Research (IIOPR) in 2020.
For the oil palm mission, the central government has identified the North East region as a special focus area as the target set for the North East in the next five years is more than 50 per cent of the overall target of 6.5 lakh hectares set for the entire nation.
However, the Meghalaya government is reluctant to accept oil palm plantation following concerns expressed over the large-scale destruction of forest due to such plantation.
Recently, Tura MP Agatha Sangma has flagged her concerns through a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi regarding his ambitious expansion of oil palm plantations in the “biodiversity hotspot and ecologically fragile” North East region.
Sources also said that the total potential area for oil palm plantation in all 22 states of the country is 27,99,086 hectares and the total number of districts where there is potential for oil palm plantation is 284.
While assessing the potential area, ICAR- Indian Institute of Oil Palm Research considered all the environmental and bio diversity parameters and recommended its cultivation in selected districts and states.
It may be mentioned that the Centre has recently launched the National Mission on Edible Oils – Oil Palm (NMEO-OP) with the aim to increase crude palm oil production with the aim to reduce the import burden.
The salient features of NMEO-OP include assistance for planting material, inputs for intercropping upto gestation period of four years and for maintenance, establishment of seed gardens, nurseries, micro irrigation, bore well, pumpset, water harvesting structure, vermi compost units, solar pumps, harvesting tools, custom hiring centre cum harvester groups, farmers and officers training, and for replanting of old oil palm gardens etc.
The total approved cost of the NMEO (Oil Palm) Scheme is Rs 11,040 crore, out of which Rs 8844 crore is Central share and Rs 2196 crore state share. For the year 2021-22, a total of Rs 10,422.69 lakh has been approved for various state annual action plans.
