Steering Committee meeting of ‘Himmothan Project’ held

By OUR STAFF REPORTER
DEHRADUN, 13 Dec: The 12th State Level Steering Committee meeting of the “Himmothan” Project run by the Tata Trust under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary Utpal Kumar Singh was held at the Secretariat, here, on Thursday.
Praising the programmes run under the project, Chief Secretary Singh sought suggestions to make them more effective. He said that to achieve the goal of doubling the income of farmers was envisaged by the Prime Minister. He stressed that the project should focus on processing of agriculture products and providing low cost power tillers to the farmers.
He emphasised on an awareness campaign for farmers to sow commercial crops. To double the income of farmers, officers of the agriculture, horticulture, peyjal, and officers involved with employment generation projects ought to work in close cooperation with Tata Trust officials.
Vibha Puri Das, Chief of “Himmothan”, said that under the project the target had been fixed to raise the living standards of one lakh families in one thousand villages till 2020.
She said that to achieve this goal, the project in cooperation with the state government Integrated Livelihood Project, Participatory Forest Management and Uttarakhand State Rural Livelihood Project has been working for farmers in agriculture, horticulture, livelihood, skill development, education, peyjal and cleanliness. She gave a detailed presentation on the works being done by the “Himmothan” project.
Project Director Yashpal Singh Bisht gave a detailed presentation on the implementation and monitoring of the project. During the presentation, Bisht said that the programmes organised under the project were monitored and evaluated by the committee constituted at the district level, once a year. He explained in detail about the various programmes – toilet schemes, livestock development, agriculture, horticulture, education and livelihood rehabilitation programmes being run under the project. Bisht said that cooperatives of districts had formed the Trishuli Producer Company for value addition of local products, branding and marketing in various markets of the state, through which, the livelihood project is operated.
Present on the occasion were Additional Chief Secretary Radha Raturi, Additional Secretary Ravneet Cheema, Additional Secretary Ramvilas Yadav, Member of Himmothan Project STS Lepcha, Tata Trust Deputy Director Dr Malavika Chauhan, Zonal Head Dr Amrita Patwardhan, Head of Department, Education, Manish Jha, Head of the Department, Agriculture Rajendra Koshyari and officials of departments concerned.