Tezpur, April 29: The agriculture department of Arunachal Pradesh has started an oil palm plantation/cultivation project in nine districts of the state under mini mission-II of national mission on oilseeds and oil palm.
The department has selected four zones, including nine potential districts, for oil palm cultivation in the state and identified approximately 1.26 lakh hectares. The selected districts are zone-I (Namsai, Changlang, Tirap), zone-II (Lower Dibang Valley), zone-III (East Siang), zone-IV (West Siang, Lower Subansiri, Papum Pare and East Kameng).
According to official sources, the Arunachal Pradesh government has signed an MoU with three companies to promote cultivation of oil palm and commercialisation/industrialisation of fruit products (processing of palm oil). The companies are Shivasaise Oil Palm Pvt Ltd, Andra Pradesh, Oil Palm Agrotect Pvt Ltd, Hyderabad, and Ruchi Soya Industries Ltd, Andhra Pradesh.
Oil palm plantation was launched at Leku farming site at Ruskin in East Siang, about 32km from Pasighat, on Wednesday in the presence of state agriculture officials and corporate executives of Ruchi Soya Industries Ltd.
State nodal officer for oil palm cultivation, T.D. Neekham, said the country produces about 9.5 million tonnes edible oil against the demand of 20 million.
The objective of the project is to attain self-sufficiency in the front of edible oil and save the annual foreign exchange of Rs 60,000 croreto Rs 70,000 crore that the country spends in procuring edible oil from Malaysia and Indonesia.
Neekham said the government is encouraging the farmers to take up cultivation by giving subsidy for water harvesting structure, drip irrigation, vermicompost and plantation maintenance (cultivation) subsidy for four years. This can support the farmers during gestation period, he added.
Explaining the need for oil palm cultivation, head of Ruchi Soya Industries Limited, P. Mallesham, said Arunachal Pradesh possesses excellent climatic conditions with the annual rainfall of above 4,000mm distributed over a period of eight to nine months.
"This will definitely help get good yields and a revolutionary change in the rural economy of the state," he added.
Oil palm cultivation was started in Andhra Pradesh during 1995-96. It needed more than a decade to convince the farmers and commercial horticulturists on itsavailability.
