Tura, December 20, 2021: In order to promote the quality of honey produced by the beekeepers across the state, to provide better packaging and better marketing facility, Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma handed over bee boxes to Master beekeepers of Garo Hills in the presence of Deputy Commissioner, West Garo Hills, Ram Singh, General Manager, MBMA, A. Suting and other officials and public leaders at Tura on Monday.
In his address, the Chief Minister said that the government is now launching the Apiculture Mission 2.0 with the objective of building the capacities of the individuals engaged in honey value chain and enhance honey production, processing and marketing capacity in the state. The Mission 2.0 would build on the achievements and lessons learnt from the first Apiculture Mission he said.
To this effect the State Government has sanctioned 60 crore of rupees as total outlay for Apiculture, out of which Rs 40 crore is to be borne direct from the government while Rs.20 crore will be financial linkage component. Through this initiative it is expected to get a yield of 700 MT of honey production and revenue of Rs. 55 crore from sale of honey from second year. Stating that the demand for local honey is very high, the Chief Minister was confident that the state would be able to collect revenue of even more than 55 crore with better packaging of the product.
Simultaneously, the Chief Minister also distributed cheques amounting to over 2.80 crores of rupees to collective marketing centres (CMCs) owned by selected integrated village cooperative societies (IVCSs), entrepreneurs of Garo Hills for aggregation, processing and marketing of products under Megha-LAMP at a programme organized by MBMA.
Giving away the cheques to the beneficiaries, the Chief Minister said that the biggest problem for every government is solving the issue of unemployment. However, if one cooperative society or entrepreneur can start a production unit or processing factory on a large scale it can give employment to hundreds of youth in a particular area, he added. He also said that while the government was providing this kind of support to the entrepreneurs and unemployed youths, the success would eventually rest on their hands depending on how hard they strive to build up their enterprise.
The Chief Minister also gave away certificates to youths who successfully completed 3-month training in Masonry/plumbing conducted by Bakdil under MBMA at Bakdil Training Centre recently.