BHOPAL: Madhya Pradesh plans to implement the Sathi (Sustainable Agriculture through Holistic Integration) Project. The estimated expenditure of the project would be around Rs3,380 crore. Around 7,300 warehouses, 2,100 cold storages and over 100 markets would be developed under the scheme.
Panchayat and rural development minister Mahendra Singh Sisodia said that MP will be the first state in the country to implement the Sathi project. “It will prove effective in fulfilling the government’s goal of doubling the income of farmers and realise the dream of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan of a self-reliant India and a self-reliant MP”, he said.
Sisodia said the scheme should be given a practical form, so that farmers should get maximum benefits. He directed the nodal agency of the scheme, National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd (NAFED), to prepare a detailed action plan and send it to the Union government to get funding. Initially, the scheme will be implemented as a pilot project in 10 development blocks of five districts .
Sisodia took a meeting related to the Sathi project at the Mantralaya here on Monday.
In a presentation related to the plan, it was informed that in the first phase, the scheme has been prepared for 26 districts of the state, namely Guna, Satna, Ashoknagar, Gwalior, Rewa, Morena, Alirajpur, Balaghat, Barwani, Chhatarpur, Dhar, Panna, Rajgarh, Sheopur, Shahdol, Shivpuri, Tikamgarh, Jhabua, Sehore, Katni, Raisen, Anuppur, Seoni, Dewas and Umaria, along with 100 development blocks of Damoh.
Under the scheme, 100 Sathi markets, 7,319 warehouses, 2,133 cold storages, 405 grading units and 2,126 agricultural product processing units will be set up.
The estimated expenditure will be around Rs3,380 crore for the implementation of the scheme.
The five components of the Sathi scheme will be Sathi farmers’ group, Sathi processing centre, Sathi udyog, Sathi market and common facility centre. The work of storage of products and primary value addition will be done by the Sathi processing centres at the panchayat- level.
The Sathi markets to be set up at the block-level will be modern retail outlets, which will be built on an area of 4,000sqft and warehouses, cold storages, training centres, hostels, shops, banks, food courts, dairy outlets and game zones will be built.
