Department of land resource will be organizing state level watershed conference, in culmination of the batch-1 project of Integrated Watershed Management programme (IWMP) on August 11 at NBCC convention hall.
Briefing media persons this afternoon at the conference hall, Secretary land resource Y. Kikheto Sema IAS informed that IWMP project which was started in 2009-10 covering 247 villages and until today, the project has covered 1010 villages. He said the project was for five years and the first batch completed this March.
During the conference, the department will hand over the watershed development fund to the 247 villages, as out of the 56% of the IWMP fund that goes to the IWMP villages, the villages reserves 5% as watershed development fund, having a joint account of the department and the IMWP villages, thereby the department will hand over the entire responsibilities to the 247 villages as the first batch was concerned.
He further said that the department were planning to identify areas for rubber and coffee plantation as comparatively returns of jhum cultivation was very poor and said these two projects has been targeted as it can create employment opportunity and the economy in rural areas can be vastly improved, added Sema.
For rubber plantation, Sema said 4.5 lakhs hectares of land has been identified as feasible and viable area for rubber plantation throughout the state, particularly in Peren, Dimapur, Mokokchung, Wokha, Mon and Longleng.
Currently he said 15,000 hectares was covered by rubber plantation out of which 6 lakhs rubber trees are under-taping and the current production of rubber was 3000 metric tons earning about Rs. 50 crores.
The secretary said many Jhum farmers had been transformed and benefited and disclosed another project in pipeline: spring-shed water development.
He said most of the villages depend water on PHED thereby he said it needs to create awareness to protect the springshed water conservation and how to make best use of the water available.
Director land resource Mhathung Yanthan supplemented that IWMP has been amalgamated to (Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana) PMKSY in 2016 and said this project is a people centric project, participatory in nature and most of the activities were chosen by villages according to the local conditions and desires.
Yathan shared the success of IWMP and said the department further want to take ahead this project by creating awareness as as it encompasses livelihood options and how to address the issues of environmental problems.
Also he informed that an awareness on the drying spring-shed has to be made, how to conserve and preserve water and said 11 spring sheds has been identified (1 each in every district) while also water-testing has been carried out.
On rubber plantation and its production, Yanthan informed that Rubber was taken up in major way due to many factors and said once the 66 lakhs standing trees planted in 15,000 hectares starts taping, then around Rs. 660 crores (according to the current market) is expected to be earned.
The culmination programme will be graced by chief minister T.R Zeliang as chief guest.