NEW DELHI, Aug 24 ? In what could lead to a big boost to the local farming sector, an initiative to procure defence supplies locally in the North East has gathered momentum, with the State-owned STATFED being identified as the nodal agency. Success of the initiative to procure the day-to-day requirement of the defence forces estimated now rests on the success of the pilot projects to be launched simultaneously in Guwahati and Tezpur by STATFED, said the Minister of State for Defence, Bijoy Krishna Handique.
The move, initiated at the behest of the Minister of State, took a concrete shape after a meeting in Jorhat recently, which was attended by top Army officials. Lt General Kaul who is in-charge for supplies for the Army?s Eastern Command flew down from Kolkata. Lt General Jamwal of the Four Corps joined him. The State-owned undertaking has to streamline the procurement process and deliver the supplies to the Army according to its requirement. The Army has already furnished its list of requirement to the STATFED, Handique said. The list includes food items including fish, meat, egg, green vegetables, and canned fruits, milk. If the pilot project in the two districts succeeds then it will be extended to the entire State and the Army would be procuring its food daily requirements locally in the North East, the Minister of State added.
As of now, absence of an organised source of supplies has forced the Army to source its requirements from outside the region and from various sources, he pointed out. With the STATFED taking up the responsibility of organising the procurement process from the local farms, the Army was willing to try out the local products as an experiment. If this venture works out, the Army has no objection in procuring such requirements locally. If the deal comes through then the local farming sector would be benefitted in a big way, as apart from the Army, the NE also has a sizeable concentration of Air Force, para-military forces like the CRPF, CISF, Border Security Force and the Assam Rifles among others. The entire supply business is estimated to be in the region of Rs 70-80 crore.
Handique said that the proposal was delayed first because of the downsizing exercise and then by the recent floods. ?Now that the worst is over, I have requested the chairman of STATFED, Akon Bora, to expedite the proposal and start the pilot projects,? he added. Handique also disclosed that he has already revived an old proposal of supplying a local variety of the rice ?Kumol chaowl? to Assam Rifles. The quality of the local rice has evoked keen interest among the defence forces, he said.