Committee led by Chief Secy to monitor proper functioning of Krishi Bazars

A committee comprising officials of additional secretary rank led by Chief Secretary Basudeb Bandyopadhyay has been formed to ensure proper functioning of Krishi Bazars for which the state government had invested Rs 1,200 crore in the past six years.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had over and again raised the issue during administrative review meetings in the districts and issued directions to take necessary steps for proper functioning of the Krishi Bazars.

Soon after coming to power, the Mamata Banerjee government took up a project to set up a total of 186 Krishi Bazars in districts where farmers can directly sell their produce and at the same time can store the same. Till date 176 have been constructed.

Around 50 of the 176 Krishi Bazars are fully functional and once or twice in a week markets are set up in rest of the bazars. However, farmers store paddy and sell the same in most of the Krishi Bazars. But the target of the state government is to help them sell all sorts of their produce from Krishi Bazars and that was the main motive behind its coming up. The Krishi Bazars were unique in design with provision to set up cold storage within the same premises. A high-level meeting was held in this regard at Nabanna on Tuesday in which state agriculture minister Purnendu Basu, Agriculture Marketing minister Tapan Dasgupta, advisor to the Chief Minister on agriculture Pradip Majumdar, Chief Secretary Basudeb Bandyopadhyay and other senior officials were present.

The committee that has been formed under the Chief Secretary will be going through the assessment reports on each of the Krishi Bazars and will take necessary steps to find out solutions to ensure proper functioning of all of them in the state. It is learnt that the state government is considering to come up with policies in this regard.

The members of the committee will hold video conferences with respective District Magistrates to find out ways to iron out the existing problems causing hindrance for smooth functioning of the Krishi Bazars for which the state government has invested Rs 1,200 crore.

Another review meeting will be held in this regard within the next one-and-a-half months.