Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Jan 31: Chief Secretary, Dr Arun Kumar Mehta today emphasised on developing better synergy between the indenting departments and financial institutions for enhanced access to credit in favour of individual beneficiaries under different government schemes.
He made these remarks while speaking in a meeting to review the Pradhan Mantri formalization of micro-food processing enterprise scheme.
The meeting was attended by ACS, Agriculture Production Department; Principal Secretary, Skill Development Department; Secretary in APD; Special Secretary, APD; MD, JKRLM; MD, HP&M; Director Agriculture, Jammu/Kashmir; Director Horticulture, Jammu/Kashmir, Director, Animal Husbandry, Jammu/Kashmir and many other concerned officers.
Dr Mehta impressed upon the officers to hold the DLC meetings regularly. He told them to hold deliberations over all issues faced by them in such meetings to iron out the differences between them. He asked them to be on the same page about the smooth implementation of the scheme and meeting its objectives.
He enjoined upon them to lessen the rejection of applications and work out for improving the quality of applications. He advised them to make best out of such schemes as these offer opportunities for everyone including the financial institutions to do the business.
The Chief Secretary encouraged the department to take the formalization of the important sector of food processing a notch higher by bringing in better practices for value addition and marketing of the products. He made out that this formalization should lead to the upscaling of both capital and employment generation in these units.
The ACS, APD, Atal Dulloo gave a detailed overview of this scheme and the impediments faced during its implementation. He gave out that the same would aid in accomplishing the dream of self-reliant India by promoting local food based enterprises.
The meeting further informed that the establishment of 3 Common Incubation Centres (CICs) at Narwal, Sopore and Anantnag have been completed in the UT under it for the products designated under ODOP for these districts. In addition 2 more are under pipeline for districts Budgam and Ramban.
The components for CICs includes infrastructure, plant & machinery, food testing laboratories and providing other accessories and amenities for the stakeholders, as was divulged in the meeting. Pertinent to mention here that GoI has approved an outlay of Rs 25.96 Cr for the year 2022-23 for the UT.
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