The Agriculture & Rural Development Committee visited Santiniketan on February 4&5, 2016 for adopting five villages in and around Santiniketan in association with VISVA BHARATI UNIVERSITY. The five villages were:

1. Kakotia

2. Ramnagar

3. Halsidanga

4. Paruldanga

5. Khoshkadambapur

Objective of the Project:-

The main objective of this project is “Economic Upliftment of Farmers” of those five villages by providing them technical support for farming vis-à-vis Market linkage of their produce.

• Soil Health Card / Soil Testing

• Organic farming with Organic Fertilizer

• Improve irrigation facility

• Market Linkage

Update on Model Village Programme (As on 31st July, 2017):

In this context, The Agriculture & Rural Development Committee of The Bengal Chamber has taken various initiatives for the farmers of those respective villages throughout the year.

• The Bengal Chamber along with Ramakrishna Mission, Narendrapur organized 2 days training programme on Vermi-compost at Ramakrishna Mission, Narendrapur, Kolkata involving 30 farmers of 5 selected villages. After taking requisite knowledge in the training the farmers came back and started practical work in their respective villages.

• After the training, six vermi-compost pits were constructed in three (03) villages. Mr. Satyabrata Mukherjee has visited to 2 villages on 4th September, 2016 to observe the initiative taken by the farmer to construct the vermi-compost pits.

• The Agriculture & Rural Development Committee, The Bengal Chamber in association with Department of Lifelong Learning & Extension, Visva-Bharati distributed a questionnaire to farmers asking for details of farming and non-farming activities.

• We have provided vehicle to the farmers for commuting with their products to the adjacent market and also help them to get the well market linkage of their produce through Sufal Bangla, an initiative of Agriculture Marketing Department, Government of West Bengal.

• Mr. Satyabrata Mukherjee is also the member of executive committee of Mission for Integrated Development of Horticulture (MIDH). Under his leadership, MIDH and Hindustan Insecticides Limited (HIL) along with Visva-Bharati University organized an awareness workshop on Safe Use of Pesticides amongst the farmers of the 5 villages.

• Mr. Scott Sindelar, Minister Counselor for Agricultural Affairs at US Embassy, New Delhi along with Mr. Satyabrata Mukherjee, Chairperson – Agriculture & Rural Development Committee, The Bengal Chamber visited Santiniketan and the adjacent villages to understand how we are undertaking ground-level work for the farmers in various aspects of agriculture on those villages.

• The Bengal Chamber Secretariat went to NABARD Regional office, kolkata and met Mr. Amit Kumar Das, Assistant General Manager, NABARD. NABARD wants a proposal from us regarding the Model village project and suggested that the chamber should focus on Market Linkage and promote organic farming amongst the farmers of the respective villages.

• After the meeting, we had a discussion with Mr. Kalyan Kar, Co-Founder, Ingreens and Mr. Tridibesh Banerjee, Managing Director, Ingreens and decided to prepare a proposal which we would submit to NABARD.