Uncertain Future

Silchar, Nov. 23: The Mizoram government has eventually finalised all the detailed plans and modalities of its ambitious flagship farming programme named New Land Use Policy, which aims at giving a boost to the almost stagnant output of farmers in the rural backwaters of the state.

Another objective of the programme is to discourage farmers who are now making a beeline for major towns like Aizawl, Lunglei and Champai from the rural areas in search of livelihood by seeking unskilled manual jobs there.

State agriculture minister H. Liansailova said the multi-layered scheme, when fully implemented, would go a long way in mitigating rural poverty in Mizoram.

Liansailova added that the programme would be devoted to the agriculture and horticulture revival by doing away with the wasteful jhum cultivation and providing land rights to peasants till agricul-ture in the rural areas get a firm root. It would also take care of the free and sometimes subsidised supply of their elementary food, housing, healthcare, school education and road infrastructure needs.

An official document quoting Liansailova also made it clear that this project would be the first-of-its-kind in the entire country. The document disclosed that the project would cost Rs 2,526.89 crore over a span of seven or more years.

Liansailova said the Congress government in Mizoram had earmarked Rs 100 crore for its phased execution.

The programme was a fond scheme of the Lalthanhawla-led Congress government du-ring its earlier term between 1993 and 1998, but it could not make much headway then.

Chief minister Lalthan-hawla said he would now see to it that this scheme for the uplift of the poverty-ridden Mizos in the rural areas is now fulfilled in its entirety.

The document revealed that its funds would flow in from the Prime Minister’s Special Package for the backward areas. A multi-disciplinary high-powered Union government team had already visited the state, particularly in its acutely backward Lunglei and Saiha districts, to get acquainted with the various facets as well as the nitty-gritty of the scheme.

The Opposition parties in Mizoram are, however, not happy with the way this much-publicised flagship scheme is turning out. MNF leader R. Lalthangliana, who is the head of the Opposition group in the Assembly, had accused the state government of diverting the funds from 18 development departments like animal husbandry, veterinary and sericulture to the new scheme.