Mizoram sends foodgrain SOS
- Cash incentives & food-for-work scheme to help tide over crisis
Aizawl, Dec 17 : To stave off the looming food crisis, the Mizoram government has sent an SOS to the Centre to make rush at least 10,000 metric tonnes of foodgrains, particularly rice, the staple food of the Mizos every month.
The crisis has been triggered by the devastation of paddy fields by hordes of rodents.
Mizoram food and civil supplies minister K. Sangthuama said in Aizawl yesterday that the farmers in many remote villages in the state would not be able to raise any crops this season as vast expanses of croplands had been destroyed by rodents.
The rat population increased in the last two years in the wake of the bamboo flowering, which is a periodic natural phenomenon in Mizoram, occurring every 48 years. The bamboo flowers and their fruits tend to augment the fertility of the rats.
Sangthuama disclosed that to tackle the food crisis “in an emergency like situation” in the state, the Centre had agreed to provide around 5,000 tonnes of foodgrains a month in its first phase. The Centre had promised that the monthly food indents would be further hiked phase-wise to meet the acute food crisis. The food stocks will be sent to the railway terminus here and dispatched to Aizawl by truck via National Highway 54.
Another route would be the transportation of rice through the Silchar-Lumding metre gauge hill section by train to Bhairabi, Mizoram’s lone railhead on the Assam-Mizoram border near Hailakandi district.
Last month, the Food Corporation of India was able to carry 5,000 tonnes of rice to Mizoram through Silchar and Bhairabhi routes.
Sangthuama also said the state government would spend Rs 2.5 crore every month from its exchequer for transporting the foodstock to the villages and ration shops in the urban belts, including Aizawl. Some portions of this rice allotment would be bought by the Mizoram government at the above poverty line (APL) rates.
The Mizoram government is pulling out all stops to tackle the looming famine in the post-bamboo flowering season under the Bamboo Flowering and the Famine Combat Scheme (Baffacos). The project envisages the introduction of the food-for-work schemes in villages where the winter crops were ravaged by rats, besides providing incentives to farmers to switch over to other cash crops like sunflower and passion fruit.
The food-for-work programme envisages the provision of creating mandays of jobs in the farm fields and in infrastructural works where each individual can earn up to Rs 100 a day. The minister added that from now on, every farmer in the rural enclaves in the state would get a weekly rice quota of 3kg, one kilo more than the previous allotment of 2kg.
Mizoram, which has a population of over nine lakh, has an average rice output of 1,25,000 tonnes harvested from about 80,000 hectares of farmland. At least one-third of its crops have already been devastated by the famine triggered by bamboo flowering.
Telegraph India
=============================================
Public hearing on Tipaimukh
The Manipur government will convene yet another public hearing in Tipaimukh subdivision soon in a bid to gauge the extent of public opposition to the controversial hydel project.
The authorities in Manipur and the North East Electric Power Corporation (Neepco) held the last public hearing on environmental issues regarding the Tipaimukh project in Tamenglong district in December last year.
The Manipur government had stated that there would be no more public hearings. But the last public hearing was held under pressure from the Union home ministry, which was flooded by a stream of complaints from Manipur about the “lackadaisical way in which the public hearings on the project were held” .
The multipurpose Tipaimukh project, which was first mooted in the fifties, was delayed for reasons ranging from revised investigations, change of the dam site and environmental issues.
At present, a host of environmental lobbies, including an NGO named Action Committee Against Tipaimukh Project, and the Hmar tribal bodies are up in arms against this hydel project. The Hmar tribal bodies have been opposing the project fearing possible flooding of their habitat following the construction of a vast reservoir by the hydel project authorities.
The delay in execution of this project has also led to a rise in its cost from Rs 2,869 crore to Rs 6,000 crore.
Neepco has floated a global tender for international competitive bidding for engineering, procurement and construction of this project with December 31 as the deadline. But the project is awaiting final clearance from the Union ministry of forest and environment, along with the approval of the Union cabinet committee on economic affairs.
Neepco has been making progress in the project’s detailed survey and investigation.
It has also commenced work related to development of infrastructure like accommodation of the staff at Tipaimukh and repairing the roads as well as developing a river route on the Barak leading to the site from Karimganj via this town. In December 2006, Union minister for power S. Shinde had laid the foundation stone for this project at Thanlon under Churachandpur district.
Telegraph India
===================================
Mizoram govt fails to combat Mautam
Aizawl, Dec 16 : The opposition Congress today said Mizoram is on the brink of a famine as the "corrupt" MNF government "failed" to combat the devastation caused by 'Mautam' (bamboo flowering) related to rodents despite sufficient central funds.
The state is on the brink of a food crisis despite sufficient central funds to meet the situation arising out of 'Mautam', the opposition alleged.
Godowns all over the state have insufficient rice stocks while poor villagers were facing a starvation-like situation due to inadequate supply, Aizawl district Congress committee said in a statement today.
"Even Governor M M Lakhera has requested the Centre to increase the supply of rice to the state which clearly proves that the Mizo National Front government has misused the Centrally-sponsored (Baffacos) Bamboo Flowering and Famine Combat Scheme funds," the statement said.
Mr Lalkhera told reporters here that the Centre’s reluctance in giving more aid to Mizoram was because of a wrong conception given to it by the state government when it formulated Baffacos.
"There was a communication gap between the state and the central governments which was made apparent to me in the two recent meetings with the Prime Minister and the Union Agriculture Minister in New Delhi," Mr Lakhera said.
The state had showed the reasons to the Centre that Baffacos would prevent 'Mautam' problems and this perception had caused the Centre to be skeptical about implementation of the scheme, the Governor said.
It was too late to combat the famine because the scheme’s objective was to diversify crops and provide other means of livelihood in the rural areas. Had it been implemented five years ago the scheme would have helped in combating the problem facing the state now, Mr Lakhera said.
UNI
==========================================
www.sinlung.com
- Cash incentives & food-for-work scheme to help tide over crisis
Aizawl, Dec 17 : To stave off the looming food crisis, the Mizoram government has sent an SOS to the Centre to make rush at least 10,000 metric tonnes of foodgrains, particularly rice, the staple food of the Mizos every month.
The crisis has been triggered by the devastation of paddy fields by hordes of rodents.
Mizoram food and civil supplies minister K. Sangthuama said in Aizawl yesterday that the farmers in many remote villages in the state would not be able to raise any crops this season as vast expanses of croplands had been destroyed by rodents.
The rat population increased in the last two years in the wake of the bamboo flowering, which is a periodic natural phenomenon in Mizoram, occurring every 48 years. The bamboo flowers and their fruits tend to augment the fertility of the rats.
Sangthuama disclosed that to tackle the food crisis “in an emergency like situation” in the state, the Centre had agreed to provide around 5,000 tonnes of foodgrains a month in its first phase. The Centre had promised that the monthly food indents would be further hiked phase-wise to meet the acute food crisis. The food stocks will be sent to the railway terminus here and dispatched to Aizawl by truck via National Highway 54.
Another route would be the transportation of rice through the Silchar-Lumding metre gauge hill section by train to Bhairabi, Mizoram’s lone railhead on the Assam-Mizoram border near Hailakandi district.
Last month, the Food Corporation of India was able to carry 5,000 tonnes of rice to Mizoram through Silchar and Bhairabhi routes.
Sangthuama also said the state government would spend Rs 2.5 crore every month from its exchequer for transporting the foodstock to the villages and ration shops in the urban belts, including Aizawl. Some portions of this rice allotment would be bought by the Mizoram government at the above poverty line (APL) rates.
The Mizoram government is pulling out all stops to tackle the looming famine in the post-bamboo flowering season under the Bamboo Flowering and the Famine Combat Scheme (Baffacos). The project envisages the introduction of the food-for-work schemes in villages where the winter crops were ravaged by rats, besides providing incentives to farmers to switch over to other cash crops like sunflower and passion fruit.
The food-for-work programme envisages the provision of creating mandays of jobs in the farm fields and in infrastructural works where each individual can earn up to Rs 100 a day. The minister added that from now on, every farmer in the rural enclaves in the state would get a weekly rice quota of 3kg, one kilo more than the previous allotment of 2kg.
Mizoram, which has a population of over nine lakh, has an average rice output of 1,25,000 tonnes harvested from about 80,000 hectares of farmland. At least one-third of its crops have already been devastated by the famine triggered by bamboo flowering.
Telegraph India
=============================================
Public hearing on Tipaimukh
The Manipur government will convene yet another public hearing in Tipaimukh subdivision soon in a bid to gauge the extent of public opposition to the controversial hydel project.
The authorities in Manipur and the North East Electric Power Corporation (Neepco) held the last public hearing on environmental issues regarding the Tipaimukh project in Tamenglong district in December last year.
The Manipur government had stated that there would be no more public hearings. But the last public hearing was held under pressure from the Union home ministry, which was flooded by a stream of complaints from Manipur about the “lackadaisical way in which the public hearings on the project were held” .
The multipurpose Tipaimukh project, which was first mooted in the fifties, was delayed for reasons ranging from revised investigations, change of the dam site and environmental issues.
At present, a host of environmental lobbies, including an NGO named Action Committee Against Tipaimukh Project, and the Hmar tribal bodies are up in arms against this hydel project. The Hmar tribal bodies have been opposing the project fearing possible flooding of their habitat following the construction of a vast reservoir by the hydel project authorities.
The delay in execution of this project has also led to a rise in its cost from Rs 2,869 crore to Rs 6,000 crore.
Neepco has floated a global tender for international competitive bidding for engineering, procurement and construction of this project with December 31 as the deadline. But the project is awaiting final clearance from the Union ministry of forest and environment, along with the approval of the Union cabinet committee on economic affairs.
Neepco has been making progress in the project’s detailed survey and investigation.
It has also commenced work related to development of infrastructure like accommodation of the staff at Tipaimukh and repairing the roads as well as developing a river route on the Barak leading to the site from Karimganj via this town. In December 2006, Union minister for power S. Shinde had laid the foundation stone for this project at Thanlon under Churachandpur district.
Telegraph India
===================================
Mizoram govt fails to combat Mautam
Aizawl, Dec 16 : The opposition Congress today said Mizoram is on the brink of a famine as the "corrupt" MNF government "failed" to combat the devastation caused by 'Mautam' (bamboo flowering) related to rodents despite sufficient central funds.
The state is on the brink of a food crisis despite sufficient central funds to meet the situation arising out of 'Mautam', the opposition alleged.
Godowns all over the state have insufficient rice stocks while poor villagers were facing a starvation-like situation due to inadequate supply, Aizawl district Congress committee said in a statement today.
"Even Governor M M Lakhera has requested the Centre to increase the supply of rice to the state which clearly proves that the Mizo National Front government has misused the Centrally-sponsored (Baffacos) Bamboo Flowering and Famine Combat Scheme funds," the statement said.
Mr Lalkhera told reporters here that the Centre’s reluctance in giving more aid to Mizoram was because of a wrong conception given to it by the state government when it formulated Baffacos.
"There was a communication gap between the state and the central governments which was made apparent to me in the two recent meetings with the Prime Minister and the Union Agriculture Minister in New Delhi," Mr Lakhera said.
The state had showed the reasons to the Centre that Baffacos would prevent 'Mautam' problems and this perception had caused the Centre to be skeptical about implementation of the scheme, the Governor said.
It was too late to combat the famine because the scheme’s objective was to diversify crops and provide other means of livelihood in the rural areas. Had it been implemented five years ago the scheme would have helped in combating the problem facing the state now, Mr Lakhera said.
UNI
==========================================
www.sinlung.com
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