In a bid to stave the looming vegetable crises in the coming days, Assam Agriculture Department in Jorhat will distribute seed kits of kharif vegetables from door to door.
The project envisages giving seed kits to 10000 households located in urban and semi urban areas of Jorhat district.
Named the lao (bottle gourd), jika (ridged gourd) bhol (sponge gourd) asoni (project), the kits will contain seeds of the aforementioned vegetables as well as that of cowpea, cucumber and papaya.
Dr Nitumoni Gogoi, an official of the department who has prepared the project said a vegetable crisis possibility due to the nationwide lockdown in view of the COVID-19 threat, had affected the farmers.
“The project was prepared at the behest of additional deputy commissioner Tapan Gohain and we have called for a tender to prepare about 10000 kits,” he said.
“In addition to this we will also take the help of non-government organizations, panchayat members and if required ASHA workers to collect the names of people in different localities who would be interested in planting the seeds in one katha of land and submit the same to us, ” Gogoi said.
He further said the scheme would cover Teok, Titabar, Mariani and some other parts of Jorhat apart from the town area.
In order that the members need not come to the office to submit the lists three phone numbers with Whatsapp installed would be given so that they could upload the copy of the list.
Gogoi said if the people in urban and semi-urban areas took up the growing of these kharif vegetables, the crisis could be mitigated to some extent and there would not be any price rise.