Economic Advisory Council (EAC) team holds meeting with Meghalaya govt officials

Prime Ministers Economic Advisory Council (EAC) chairman Bibek Debroy held a meeting with officials of the North Eastern Council and Meghalaya government here.

Debroy and two other members discussed issues related to development of Meghalaya with chief secretary Y Tsering and other senior officials on Friday.

"Their visit was to understand the views of the state government and the various Central organisations," Meghalaya Planning Commissioner and secretary Vijay Kumar told mediapersons after the meeting on Friday.

Kumar said the mandate of the committee is to advise the PM on important development related issues.

"They have come up with an interesting thing called unlocking the potential of the North east region because fundamental idea is the NE has a lot of potentials," he said.

Kumar said the meeting with state government officials was to focus on agriculture, building value chain and making our products competitive and how to bring about culture of enterprise besides supporting entrepreneurs and small businesses that are there in the state.

He said the team led by the EAC Chairman also enquired as to why the state was not able to market its products to markets outside the region and in bigger cities of the country.

Kumar said a detailed presentation from the state government was presented before the team which also covered success being made by the state in term of honey production and others.

"We presented to them the example of our honey where in five years under the apiculture mission of the state government we have been able to package and brand our honey.

The apiculture mission is where we have received significant success as today our honey under various brands is being sold outside Meghalaya," he said.

Kumar said honey production has increased from 4,000 kg to 12,000 kg and it is being sold even in abroad.

"We have been able to do (this) through systematic investment, resources, proper planning and a mission mode implementation," he said.

Kumar further informed that an intervention was done on banana production in North Garo Hills where farmers were integrated and they are getting double the price from Rs 50 to Rs 100 per kg.

"We also explain to them the new things we are doing like mission Lakadong, mission jackfruit and milk mission, where we are planning to induct some 10,000 cattle," he said.

-PTI