NITI Meet: Kamal Nath says Madhya Pradesh ready to tackle delayed monsoon

Kamal Nath said e-NaM should have online payment facility, grievance redressal mechanism

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath said on Saturday that the state government had already started distributing suitable varieties of seeds to farmers to tackle the delayed onset of monsoon with the help of agricultural universities and had updated its district disaster management plans to deal with an adverse situation.

Addressing the fifth Governing Council meeting of NITI Aayog, Kamal Nath said that in order to ensure that farmers get remunerative price for their produce, structural reforms were urgently needed, particularly in farm markets.

He said that APMC Act needed to be modified so that states had farmer centric systems.

He also stressed the need for adopting a mechanism by which import and export of farm commodities was seamlessly taken care of to benefit the farmers.

Kamal Nath said that electronic National Market (e-NaM) should have an e-payment system in the absence of which several states were facing lots of difficulties, while the grievance redressal mechanism too needed to be addressed.

“The quality of produce should be treated uniformly in mandis,” Kamal Nath said.

Describing conservation of rainwater harvesting as imperative for sustainable development, the chief minister said that the demand for water for human and industrial consumption would increase in proportion to an increase in population.

Giving an example of Madhya Pradesh, Kamal Nath said that river flow restoration project was under implementation to improve the catchment area of 40 rivers in water stressed districts.

He also informed that rejuvenation of water bodies like water tanks, wells, traditional step-wells was being taken up on a massive scale.