Soon, market space to provide desired services
Kolkata: In a significant stride to encourage residents of New Town to harness their rooftop or balcony spaces to grow vegetables, the New Town Kolkata Development Authority (NKDA) is all set to create a market space from where they would be able to choose their desired service packages for the same.
"Many people have shown keen interest to start rooftop urban farming but could not begin because of lack of expertise. There will be no hassle or botheration for the house-owners as the market spaces will give them the liberty to choose the empanelled agency for maintenance and other requisites of roof top farming. The agency, in lieu of the service, will charge the resident that will be fixed by us," a senior NKDA official said.
The NKDA has already invited expression of interest (EOI) from eligible, reputed and licensed NGO/agency/company/consortium for empanelment under the NKDA for developing rooftop farming infrastructure for residents of New Town through its website. The date of opening of empanelment documents have been fixed on January 21.
According to the official, this move will be beneficial to the residents with individual plots or members of a cooperative or housing complex as rooftop farming will provide decorative benefits, quality food, architectural enhancement etc. Pointing out the advantages of rooftop urban farming, the official added that it will reduce the carbon emissions for transporting vegetables from rural areas like Bhangar to the homes in Kolkata. It will also ensure availability of pesticide free, organic, healthy and fresh vegetables. The roof would be cooler in summers as well," he added.
NKDA chairman Debashis Sen held a meeting on Friday with officers and progressive technical farmer entrepreneurs where a number of models were discussed on how to encourage city dwellers to harness the rooftops or balcony spaces to grow vegetables. The role of NKDA would be to spread the message and act as a regulator of sorts.
"At the same time, we will make citizens aware of the empanelled agencies during our outreach activities on vector-borne diseases, segregation of solid waste etc," the official maintained. Agri Horticultural Society will be the technical partner of NKDA for providing the knowhow. It may be mentioned that at Swapno Bhor, the state's first senior citizens' park, organic farming of vegetables has recently been started in collaboration with an NGO and senior citizens, who are members of the same, are overseeing it.
