Mamata to kick off Mati Utsav in Burdwan on January 2

Kolkata: Mati Utsav at Mati Tirtha in Burdwan is all set to begin on January 2. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will be inaugurating the Utsav like she has been doing for the past several years.

The Chief Minister had initiated the Utsav marking the growth of the agriculture sector in the state. Initially, it used to take place at Lalbaba Ashram Ground in Pangarh. It was in 2016, Mati Tirtha — the permanent venue was set up near Kalna Road where it is going to be inaugurated on January 2.

The preparation of the Utsav has already started and steps have been taken to make necessary arrangements as thousands of people will be visiting Mati Tirtha during the event. According to a senior official of the state Agriculture department, there will be stalls of the said department and its allies at Mati Tirtha during the Utsav.

Farmers would get to know about different modern techniques of farming from the outlets. At the same time there will be a separate arena where they can even discuss about the problems they usually face in farming. The step has been taken so that after discussing the problems with experts, concerned officials of the departments would revert back with a remedy. Besides felicitating the farmers, there will be certain new components in the Mati Utsav this year.

The official said the preparatory work has started but there will be a high-level meeting after December 25, when the block level Krishi Utsav is going to end. There will be further discussions on different aspects of Mati Utsav in the meeting. It may be mentioned that the Mamata Banerjee government has taken several steps for the benefit of farmers in the past six years to ensure that they incur profit. In November, a co-ordination meeting between the agriculture and its allied departments was held at Nabanna Sabhaghar with representatives from all districts.

It was learnt that all the district representatives have hailed the move of organising the co-ordination meeting.