By A Staff Reporter
Kathmandu, Dec 1: Newly appointed secretary at the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development Dr. Yogendra Kumar Karki has expressed his commitment to making genuine efforts to the promotion and development of the agriculture sector by addressing the problems facing by the farmers.
“My and the ministry’s effort will be to ensure the minimum conditions of agricultural sector, including chemical fertiliser, agricultural inputs, irrigation facilities, quality seeds and access of finance to the needy farmers and implementation of the minimum support price,” he said while assuming his of office on Monday.
Stating that all farmers are facing the problem of chemical fertilisers for years, he said that he would make efforts to resolve the problem permanently.
“Market management for agricultural products, promotion of organic farming, use of organic manure and ensuring access of subsidised agricultural loan to the farmers will be my main focus,” he said.
He said that coordination among the departments, ministries and federal, provincial and local governments was a must to implement the policy programmes and achieve the goal of agricultural development.
He urged all officials of the ministry and its departments to make efforts from their sides to materialise the government dream to commercialise and mechanise the agriculture sector.
He directed the officials to implement the policies and programmes introduced by the government for the development of agriculture sector and forward the works without any greed.
“I want to request to the officials to forward the files through fast track and not to hold any file more than three days in a table,” he said. He also urged them to implement the budget in time by abiding by the laws and policies.
He said that agriculture was the main sector for the economic development and achieving the government goal of “Prosperous Nepal, Happy Nepali,”
Stating that the budget allocation by the government in agriculture sector is not sufficient, he said that the government should allocate more budget in the sector by addressing all the existing problems.
To ensure profit for the farmers, the ministry would fix the minimum support prices of other agricultural products like paddy and sugarcane, he said.
He said that it was a must to promote the production of potential products, including ginger, cardamom and others to earn the foreign currency and promote import substitution products.