AGARTALA, August 20 (TIWN): Minister for Science and Technology Bijita Nath today urged for greater use of biotechnology in agricultural sector and said that the state government was working to popularize it in the past several years. Addressing the inaugural session of an interaction joint organized by the Directorate of Biotechnology and National Institute of Agriculture Marketing (NIAM) at Prajna Bhawan here this morning, Science and Technology minister Nath said that the state government has been jointly working with the national institute since the last four years to popularize biotechnological intervention in commercial agriculture.

Director of NIAM Dr. RK Mathur said that two experimental projects of biotechnological interventionin agriculture were successfully completed at South Tripura and West Tripura districts. He said that the the NIAM and state government jointly launched ‘biokit’, a package of 18 biotechnologically developed elements for soil betterment. The kit is used to correct soil salinity and act as a catalyst to increase soil organic matter and productivity, Dr. Sinha said adding that farmers could use the kit to substantially use the kit for increasing agricultural produce without disturbing the natural ecological balance.

Farmers from different parts of the state including wholesale traders, scientists and officials of the state government attended the interaction session today. Sixteen states of the country including Tripura are reported to have partially amended their state Agricultural Produce Market Committees (APMR) Acts in line with the Model Act, 2003 circulated by the Government of India. However, the state government didn’t frame its own state rules for implementing the Act.

Barely eight states framed rules for implementing the provisions of their respective state APMC Acts anyway. Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Orissa, H.P, Karnataka, M.P, Haryana have framed their own rules though limited to contract farming alone.