Centres bid to make North East the Edible oil production hub of India

Guwahati: Union Minister for DoNER G. Kishan Reddy and Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar on Tuesday (August 31) discussed issues related to the ambitious National Mission on Edible oil-Palm oil (NMEO-OP) with the chief ministers of the North-eastern states.

In a VC, the union ministers duo discussed several other matters related to this sector, including Mission Organic Value Chain Development for North-Eastern Regions (MOVCDNER), National Bamboo Mission (NBM), Sustainable Development Goals and their target indexes for North-Eastern states etc. during this conference.

It’s worth mentioning that on August 18, 2021, the Union Cabinet, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has given its approval to launch a new Mission on Oil palm named as National Mission on Edible Oils – Oil Palm (NMEO-OP) as a new Centrally Sponsored Scheme with special focus on the Northeast region and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The scheme with a pegged outlay of Rs. 11,040 crore has been formulated to boost palm oil production in the country and reduce dependence on edible oil imports. Out of its total financial outlay, the North-Eastern Region alone gets a target of 5850 crores, bringing a revolution in this sector to this region.   

Speaking in the virtual meet, Chief Minister of Assam Dr. Himanta Biswa Sarma apprised the union ministers that Assam has 350 hectares of oil palm cultivation covering Goalpara, Bongaigaon and Kamrup (R) districts. The Assam government is very enthusiastic about attaining maximum benefit from this ambitious mission. It will submit its detailed proposal to the Central Government within next week, he added. All the North-East states showed keen interest in exploring the new avenue of the agriculture sector, taking the opportunity of the central sponsored mission, sources who attended the VC told the Organiser.

Assam Agriculture Minister Atul Bora and Chief Ministers/Deputy Chief Ministers and Agriculture Ministers of North-Eastern states and senior officers from the Ministry of DoNER, Ministry of Agriculture and NEC took part in the crucial conference.