In Bengal, industry and agriculture go hand-in-hand, says Mamata

Kolkata: Stating that simultaneous growth of both industry and agriculture sector in Bengal helps in creating job opportunities, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday announced setting up of the country's biggest cold-storage for onion at Naoda in Murshidabad.

After inaugurating Upanna that is the annex building of Nabanna, Banerjee said: "In Bengal, Industry and agriculture go hand-in-hand. Simultaneous development of both helps in creation of a large number of employment opportunities."

"We had to import the entire requirement of onion from Nasik. Now it gets cultivated in districts including Purulia and Bankura. Its production has gone up from 4 lakh tonne to 7.50 lakh tonne," Banerjee said adding that the first of its kind in the country steps have been taken up to set up a 50,000 tonne capacity cold-storage for onion.

Production of eggs, chicken and fish has also gone up in the state. "In nine years since 2011, egg production has gone up by 600 crore bringing down the rate of import from 56 to 7 percent. The state will become self sufficient in egg production by the end of 2020 and we do not have to import the same from Andhra Pradesh."

Production of chicken in the state has also gone up from 5 lakh to 9 lakh in the past nine years. Production of chicken remained same at 5 lakh for decades. Haringhata Meat has set up a poultry with one lakh chicken and it will soon reach to 3 lakh.

Similarly, fish production in the state in 2011-12 was 14 lakh tonne that has gone up to 18 lakh tonne in 2019-20 financial year. There was 4.44 lakh metric tonne fish production till June. "We have carried out pisciculture in 700 ponds of the state Agriculture department. and 3.5 lakh ponds were dug under the Jal Dharo Jal Bharo project," Banerjee said adding that now orchid is also grown in Krishnanagar and Murshidabad that usually used to be found in Kalimpong, Kaurseong and Mirik.

In connection with Upanna, She said that it will house some offices of Chief Minister's Office (CMO), control room of both West Bengal Police and Kolkata Police.

The state government on Friday will hold a meeting with potato traders and other concerned authorities to ensure a check on the skyrocketing of potato price. The meeting will be held at Nabanna.

The decision to hold the meeting has been taken in a high level meeting held on Wednesday. At present the price of potato has increased to Rs 30 per kg.