The Plantation Directorate will implement the State government’s Plantation Housing Scheme that was sanctioned ₹10 crore in the current financial year to build accommodation for workers in the sector, said Industries Minister P. Rajeeve in Kochi on Tuesday. He said the order on the State government involvement in the housing scheme was expected to be issued in June even as plantation owners were working to improve the residential quarters of labourers.
The Minister spoke at a three-hour discussion with plantation owners in Kochi. Officials from the Plantation Directorate and Industries and Commerce department were among those who participated in the discussions, said a press release.
The government hoped to open a single-window facility as part of efforts to revive the plantation sector, said Mr. Rajeeve.
The meeting was held in the city against the backdrop of the recent permission given to planters to use 5% the State’s plantation sector for other purposes. The Minister said the single window would enable submission of applications from different departments. “We will try to ensure that the applications are processed in a time-bound manner,” he said. “The government will go for more concrete steps, once the ongoing IIM-Kozhikode study [on the plantation status] is over.”
To discuss and sort out all issues regarding clearance of the housing scheme, the government was facilitating a meeting of the State-level bankers’ committee, said the Minister, exhorting planters to submit their requirements in a fortnight’s time. High-powered panels under the Revenue and Forest departments would consider the memorandums from planters, he added.
Biju Prabhakar, Secretary, Department of Industries, emphasised the need to check increasing fragmentation of plantations and their conversion into other modes. “All the same, the stakeholders should be protected,” he said and called for “greater importance” to coffee.
Department of Industries and Commerce Director S. Harikishore, who is Special Officer, Plantations, said the government’s upcoming initiative for 2024-25 proposed three new schemes - plantation support, insurance, and market support.
