The District Planning Committee meeting on Monday resolved to urge the government to extend incentives to farmers engaged in cultivation of foodgrains.
Addressing the meeting, president of the zilla panchayat Kalagodu Ratnakar said that the area under cultivation of food crops had declined in the district in recent times.
As farmers were of the view that returns from the cultivation of paddy, the main food crop of the region, was not remunerative, they were switching over to arecanut, ginger and maize cultivation. The area under paddy cultivation, which was about 1.11 lakh hectares of land in 2011-12, had come down to 1.05 lakh hectares in 2014-15, he said.
A similar trend was prevailing in other parts of the country and it might pose a threat to food security. In Kerala, with a view to promote food crop cultivation, the State government had started providing Rs. 20,000 as incentive an acre of land as incentive. The Karnataka government should follow this model, he said.
Kumar, Assistant Director in the Department of Agriculture, informed the meeting that four farmers had committed suicide in the district in past one month. All of them had borrowed loans from various sources.
H.R. Rajappa, Project Director of Urban Planning Cell, said that all urban local bodies in the district had landfill sites to dispose off solid waste generated in their limits. At present, 105 tonnes of solid waste was generated in Shivamogga city, daily. It had been planned to decentralise the solid waste management system in the city. A plant that produces fuel briquettes from organic waste would be installed near Vidya Nagar here. The plant would be operated on public-private partnership model. The briquettes could be sold to industrial units. The Shivamogga City Corporation would soon float tenders in this regard, he said.
Waste treatment plant
In addition, the Shivamogga District Chamber of Commerce and Industries had come forward to establish a pyrolysis waste treatment plant in the city, where solid waste would be subjected to thermo-chemical decomposition at high temperatures with minimal oxygen. The plastic waste would be converted into bio-fuel and organic waste into manure in this unit, he said.
Member of the committee Esur Basavaraj said, residents of Esur, Gama, Arishinagere and Hittala villages in Shikaripur taluk were facing problems for burying the dead. Similar problem was there in other villages of the district too, he said. Mr. Ratnakar directed the executive officers of taluk panchayats to identify sich villages. The possibility of allotting a land belonging to the Revenue Department or purchasing some private land with the funds available under local area development funds of MPs and MLAs for burial land would be explored, he said.
Mayor of Shivamogga City Corporation Mangala Annappa and Chief Executive Officer of zilla panchayat B. Ramu were present.
Area under paddy cultivation in Shivamogga district has come down to 1.05 lakh hectares in 2014-15 from 1.11 hectares in 2011-12.
Kalagodu Ratnakar,
President, Shivamogga Zilla Panchayat
