The Punjab government today decided to do away with the practice of Change of Land Use (CLU) certificate which is required for setting up honey processing units in the state.
Besides, Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal also favoured exemption from Income Tax for the farmers engaged in the allied farming activities.
A decision to this effect was taken by the CM Badal in a meeting with the delegation of Progressive Beekeeper's Association led by its President Simranjeet Singh, an official spokesman said.
The Chief Minister directed the Financial Commissioner, Excise and Taxation, to immediately issue a notification in this regard to promote bee-keeping as allied farming profession to further supplement the income of the farmers.
Badal also assured the association that he would soon take up the issue of seeking exemption from Income Tax (IT) for the farmers engaged in allied farming activities like bee-keeping and mushroom cultivation with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on the pattern of IT exemption already applicable in agriculture.
He further said exempting these farmers from the income tax would give further fillip to adopt allied activities of farming like apiary and mushroom cultivation to promote the concept of diversification of agriculture, which is the need of the hour.
Badal further said it is all the more important and relevant since the margins of profit from traditional farming had already been squeezed due to ever widening gap between the high cost of inputs and low returns in terms of minimum support price (MSP).
He also asked the Horticulture Director Gurkanwal Singh to immediately create one post of Joint Director (bee-keeping) and put a separate proposal to strengthen the manpower for mushroom, protected cultivation and other specialised lines in horticulture.
The Chief Minister also gave nod to undertake marketing of honey produced by the bee-keepers through its premier state marketing cooperative agency, Markfed, which had its own well knit marketing network across the country.
The honey keepers, who were producing quality honey by conforming to all the requisite parameters required for exporting it to the USA, the Middle East and Europe, could also tie up with the Markfed to enhance their profitability, he said.
Markfed has already set up a state-of-the-art honey processing unit-cum-hi-tech quality testing laboratory in Jalandhar at a cost of Rs 40 crore, which would provide the latest facilities to the honey producers from the state for processing and quality testing especially required for marketing their produce both in domestic and international market, Badal was informed in the meeting.
