Coconut development board won’t ‘bloom’

PANAJI: The agriculture department has decided to scrap the proposed state coconut development board, whose formation had been announced during the erstwhile Laxmikant Parsekar-led BJP government in 2016.

Announcing the decision to scrap the proposed coconut development board, the agriculture department has said that there is no need of a separate state board as a coconut development board of the central government already exists.

Stating that the agriculture department has recently decided to scrap the proposed board, a senior government official said the Central Coconut Development Board under the Union ministry of agriculture and farmers’ welfare implements various schemes for the promotion of coconut production.

Hence the state government felt that there is no need of a state board for the same purpose, the official reasoned out.

In March 2016, the then Parsekar government had amended the Goa, Daman and Diu Preservation of Tree Act, making changes in the classification of coconut tree.

In the wake of the public outcry against the amendment to the Preservation of Tree Act, Parsekar had announced in the 2016-17 budget the formation of state coconut development board. “To encourage more and more coconut cultivation in the state, I propose to constitute a full-fledged coconut development board which will be chaired by a prominent coconut farmer or an expert from the field and not by a politician,” Parsekar had said in his budget speech.

The previous government had also made it mandatory to obtain no-objection certificate from the agriculture department for felling a coconut tree.

Bowing to the public pressure, Manohar Parrikar-led coalition government that came in power in March 2017 amended the Goa, Daman and Diu Preservation of Tree Act reclassifying coconut palm as tree.