Governor Acharya Devvrat being welcomed by CM Jai Ram Thakur in Shimla Saturday. (Pradeep Kumar)
Bracing-up to BJP government’s flagship scheme on ‘Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF), Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur Saturday tasked all cabinet ministers and MLAs to lead the drive in a bid to motivate rest of the farming community to the new idea. Citing the example of Governor Acharya Devvrat, who had successfully adopted ZBNF on his 200-acre private land at Gurukul Kurukshetra, he claimed unless the ministers and MLAs promote the drive, the scheme will not take off easily.
“It’s a very difficult task to return back to zero budget natural farming. This is like a U-turn decades’ after having abandoned the traditional practices. Yet, there is a case study and a successful model before us demonstrated by the Governor. We have kept a budget of Rs 25 crore in this budget and once the scheme takes off, we will allot more budget to it,” he said at a one-day convention called at Hotel Peterhoff, at behest of the Governor.
Most cabinet ministers, BJP MLAs, all top ranking officers including Chief secretary Vineet Chawdhry, Additional Chief Secretary (finance and agri) Srikant Baldi, Additional CS-Cum-Principal Secretary to CM Manisha Nanda , DCs and head of departments apart from Zila Parishad and Panchayat representatives were present at the function.
Speaking at the occasion, Governor Acharya Devvrat termed the event a turning point in Himachal Pradesh’s farmining history and hoped that the way Chief Minister and Additional CS (agri) has taken-up the mission, Himachal would emerge as a natural farming state in the country and set an example for other states to follow the model.