LEH: On the initiative of Minister for Cooperatives and Ladakh Affairs Chering Dorjay to take some concrete steps in implementing the policy decision made by Hill Council to make Leh organic certified district, a meeting was convened under his chairmanship with a multinational company named Murugappa Group from Chennai in the conference hall, here today.
CEC LAHDC, Dr. Sonam Dawa, all the ECs, Councillors, DC, Leh Prasanna Ramaswamy G, HODs of Agriculture and line departments, representatives from different science institutes like DIHAR, SKUAST, CAZRI, NGOs and progressive farmers were also present in the meeting.
From Murugappa Group Santosh Kumar Jha- AGM Product Development, Sanjay Mehra, Head J&K Institutional Sales and their team members attended the meeting.
Addressing the meeting the Minister said that the purpose of this meeting is to look for a viable measure to completely replace Leh district to organic farming over the time by tying up with big multinational companies to ensure accountability and effectiveness in the process. He added that considering the policy decision of council to make the district 100% organic and the need to provide with alternative manure to fertilizers this company has been approached to find out reliable and sustainable solution to organic farming as well to mitigate the problem of increasing pest issue in the district. Dorjay said it loud and clear that there is no confusion over making Ladakh fully organic region but the need is to find out ways for how to do the same and this is the first step taken, however, the final decision has to come from all the stakeholders including line departments, experts, scientists and farmers’ representatives.
CEC, Dr. Sonam Dawa endorsing the Minister said that we need to take advantage of such opportunity in a phased manner by assessing the benefits of such imported products. CEC and DC, Leh expressed gratitude to the Minister for his initiative and intervention in setting the efforts to make Leh organic certified district. DC stressed on the need to look for demonstrable results and dwelt on ways and methods to engage with the company in a systematic and effective manner.
Jha gave a power point presentation giving an overview of bio-products division. He said that their company is committed towards safe and sustainable agriculture by putting together ancient system and science and technology. He said that they have done serious study on Ladakh over the past 3 months after getting in touch with the minister and they have also visited some of the villages, interacted with villagers and collected fruit samples in Leh for case study. They suggested for not stopping the use of chemical fertilizers but to try their products made from neem seeds and gradually reduce the quantity of chemical fertilizers with the outcome of the results of their product.
