World Bank To Fund Assam Farm Project

The scheme, Assam Rural Infrastructure and Agricultural Services Project, aims at increasing the overall agricultural production and will cover seven state departments, including fishery, animal husbandry, public works, irrigation and revenue departments.

All the departments have been entrusted with some specific work by the World Bank. While the fishery department will be allotted an amount of Rs 40.41 crore for completing their unfinished tasks, the animal husbandry department will be given Rs 43.03 crore for improvement of livestock, according to state agriculture department director P Saikia. However, the major beneficiary of the project will be the state public works department. It will receive Rs 273.50 crore for building roads and bridges in the rural areas, connecting the production centers with the markets.

 

A sum of Rs 44.08 crore will be given to the irrigation department for rehabilitation of deep tube wells and undertaking river pumping schemes.

Scheduled for completion by 2003, the project will help provide jobs to about three lakh people besides helping in poverty alleviation. Thirty per cent women participation in the project has been made mandatory. A special cell, the project implementation unit, has been opened to coordinate the work of the various departments involved in the project.

The project will cover six districts of north Lakhimpur, Sibsagar, Kamrup, Nagaon, Darrang and Cachar.

The agriculture department, which will be sanctioned Rs 126.59 crore, will be responsible for providing facilities such as extension of the departmental network, horticulture, training of farmers, seed multiplication and the installation of shallow tube wells.

The project has generated much expectation as its success will change the agricultural scenario in Assam and raise the cropping intensity from the present 145 per cent to 210 per cent.