The Fruit of Progress
The state’s focus on fruit cultivation has led to all-round development. It has also helped Tripura win in the best performing and most improved categories in agriculture
Tripura, says Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb, thanks to its geographical location, is all set to become the trade corridor between India and Bangladesh. His hopes to achieve this are pinned on the completion of the bridge over the river Feni, connecting the two neighbours. “Once we have the bridge, the business and trade it facilitates will convert the state into a special economic zone,” says Deb.
The government, though, is not waiting only for the bridge to put the state in the faster lane of economic development. The Union government has given an in-principle approval for setting up of Tripura’s first-ever SEZ at Sabroom at an estimated cost of Rs 1,550 crore. It’s also likely to generate 12,000 jobs, which is quite significant for a state with a high unemployment rate.
The big turnaround story, however, is being scripted in the agriculture sector, the backbone of the state’s economy. About 98 per cent area in Tripura is utilised for food crops and the remaining two per cent for non-food crops. The state has a total cultivable land of 272,330 hectares and irrigation potential of 140,383 hectares. The prime crop of the state is paddy. As per agriculture department reports, Tripura needs three lakh metric tonnes of rice per year, while producing 12 lakh metric tonnes paddy annually. However, rice production is reduced to around 8 lakh metric tonnes since nearly one-third of paddy bulk is lost during the husking process and even this bulk can’t be
purchased due to lack of milling facility. The government has to spend over Rs 600 crore per year to import rice through the Food Corporation of India (FCI). Things were looking up last year when the government convinced the FCI to procure rice from the state, but this year, the FCI has declined again. So, the state government began procuring 10,000 MT paddy from farmers at this minimum support price, though this procurement accounts for merely 1.25 per cent of the paddy produced in Tripura. Still, the farmers in the state—where the net area available for agriculture is about 27 per cent, way below the national level of 43.4 per cent—claim that this is a welcome respite from the tyranny of middlemen.
The state is progressing fast in diversification of some export quality fruits. There are 45 varieties of rare fruits and 600 medicinal plants in the state. For the past two years, Tripura has been sending consignments of locally grown pineapples and lemons to Dubai and Bangladesh. Deb expects more pineapple—the exotic Queen variety—to be exported with the increase in production from 1.26 lakh tonnes to 3 lakh tonnes by 2021.
Last year, the ruling BJP-IPFT government cracked down on cannabis cultivation causing outrage among a significant section of people who lost their livelihood. In an effort to provide relief to such farmers and phase out cannabis plantations, the government has tried to identify profitable crops which can be grown in less time on these lands. For instance, the state government has provided 200 families with Rs 15,000 each to grow oranges in the Baramura hill range of west Tripura.
The state has been taking multiple other initiatives for the welfare of farmers. According to state agriculture minister Pranjit Singha Roy, farmers have received an amount of Rs 136 crore in the present financial year under different schemes for their benefit. In order to weed out corruption in distribution of fertiliser and pesticide, the government has decided to privatise the trading of fertiliser and pesticide and ensure that it happens online. In January, to encourage floriculture among young women, a flower exhibition-cumcompetition was held in the state.
In the lone autonomous area of the state, the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council has also tried to push for agriculture production by marking land under MGNREGA projects for plantation of rubber, pineapple, mango, lemon, banana, cashew nut, and areca nut. ■