Rural Knowledge Centres for tsunami-hit farmers

Port Blair, Apr 3: The Andaman and Nicobar islands have opened a series of Rural Knowledge Centres(RKC) for tsunami-hit villages to educate the farmers on the latest techniques of agriculture, animal husbandry and fisheries.

"The main aim of establishing these centres is to provide the farmers with information like latest advancement in farming and other related activities," Andaman and Nicobar Islands Development Commissioner Dharam Pal told UNI today in Port Blair.

Till now the Andaman and Nicobar administration have opened 10 such RKCs in different islands.

Mr Pal said that villagers in different remote islands often fail to get proper information regarding agriculture and latest technologies.

"The RKCs will have facilities like computers with internet, television sets with DVD players, besides video conferencing equipment," he said.

Various other important informations about marketing, inter-island sailing schedule of vessels and present market rates will be available for the farmers' reference.

The group of 572 islands, of which now only 36 are inhabited, had suffered a major setback after 2004 tsunami.

At least 10,610 hectares of land has been lost to tsunami permanently. Some have simply disappeared from the face of the earth.

At present staff of Tata Institute of Social Science (TISS) will help the officials of Agriculture department to run all the RKCS.

"We are planning more RKCs for other remote villages so that everybody can get the benefits but we need to upgrade present RKCs with more facilities," Director of Andaman's Agricultural Department Abdul Salam said.

After tsunami catastrophe, the Centre has approved a special package of Rs 2395 million for revival of agriculture sector, including repair and reconstruction of dykes, site clearance, scrapping of surface salt, application of organic matter,application of gypsum, rainwater harvesting through check dam, creation of water body-pond/well, pump sets, cropping programme, creation of drainage facility and farm implements/equipment.

UNI