ROURKELA: The Mukhyamantri Krushi Udyog Yojana (MKUY) has reportedly failed to make inroads into the tribal-dominated Sundargarh district largely due to technical reasons and land-related hurdles. Sources said, in the past five years, the district has received 83 applications, of which, only 49 were sanctioned. Sundargarh has 3.13 lakh hectares of agricultural land.
The MKUY envisages ease of doing agribusiness through process simplification of Commercial Agri- Enterprises (CAE) and implementation of modalities by making processes simple, transparent and time-bound at all stages to benefit farmers, especially agri-entrepreneurs.
The scheme aims to promote the setting up of CAEs for the creation of wealth and employment in agriculture and allied sectors through the APICOL (Agricultural Promotion & Investment Corporation of Odisha Ltd) under the Department of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare.
APICOL district coordinator Tapas Patel informed us, since 2018-19, the district has received 83 applications. Out of 49 project applications that got the go-ahead, more than 20 projects have been implemented and subsidies to the tune of Rs 3.5 crore to Rs 4 crore released against the completed projects, he said, adding the rest 29 sanctioned projects are at various stages of processing or implementation.
“The number of sanctioned projects could have been much higher as above 200 applications despite viable agribusiness ideas could not be entertained at the initial stage due to technical hurdles with land,” said Patel. The administration is also focused on creating widespread awareness on the scheme to interest farmers and agri-entrepreneurs.
While the average size of the completed projects is about Rs 20 lakh, the largest project of a button mushroom CAE at Lathikata is Rs 1.80 crore. The chief district agriculture officer (CDAO) for Sundargarh Harihar Nayak said technical hurdles with agricultural land in the district are a major bottleneck in the way of the success of the project.
“While there is a complete restriction on lease or mortgage of tribal land in Sundargarh which is a Scheduled District, a majority of the non-tribal lands hold joint land records and all members of the family whose names appear on the records have to appear for the purpose of mortgage or lease,” Nayak informed.
Under the present circumstances, extra efforts are being made to search and motivate non-tribal farmers or interested individuals to adopt the scheme, he further stated.
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