Chitwan, Jan 2 : Bharatpur Metropolitan City Chief Renu Dahal said that the city is focused on increasing agricultural productivity. Inaugurating the 37th Annual General Meeting of the Annapurna Milk producers Cooperative at Kesarbagh, Bharatpur-6, Chief Dahal said that the Annapurna Cooperative was working constructively.

She said that cooperatives should play an important role in fulfilling the national expectations of a happy and prosperous Nepal and that they should move forward with the promotion of employment-building and productivity-boosting programs at the local level.

She said that Bharatpur Metropolitan City is working to organize and modernize the agriculture and animal husbandry sector. She claimed that the Bharatpur Municipality had introduced the production-based subsidy as well as the subsidy on mechanization.

She said that  milk farmers were being given a cash subsidy of Rs 1 per liter to assist them in production. Mayor Dahal, who was also the chief guest for the program, said, “Unless we become self-reliant in agriculture, the target we have set, can not be achieved.”

She said that their main objective was to create employment and increase productivity through programs such as investment in Small Irrigation Programme (SIP) and urged the city dwellers to take advantage of it.

Manita Joshi Vaidya, Secretary for Ministry of Land Management, Agriculture and Cooperatives, said the country had not become self-sufficient in milk production. She said that traditional agricultural production system should be improved and increased by mechanization and commercialization.

She said that today there was need for quality milk production and urged the framers and cooperatives to preserve milk quality. She said that in order to benefit from it, productivity should be increased, adding that Bagmati Province provides various grants in the form of cash and machines for farmers.

On the occasion, Bhagirath Timilsina, member of the Dairy Development Board, said that the government was unable to solve the farmer’s problems properly and added that new programs should be implemented.