Margao: Goa Forward Party Chief and TCP Minister Vijai Sardesai on Tuesday has said that the his department is ready to give benefits in the FAR, if the construction site has sizeable number of coconut trees which would be preserved.
Sardesai was addressing State Level Seminar on Coconut in presence of South Goa Member of Parliament Narendra Sawaikar and others. Progressive farmers from Goa were present for the function.
The minister also appealed each of the MLA to plant 1,000 coconut trees in their respective constituencies contributing for their preservation.
He said State government has been working on increasing the yield per hectare of the Coconut cultivation.
“As the Town and Country Planning Minister, I would like to assure that if we find coconut trees while giving permission for construction, then we are ready to give them benefit in the FAR. The more coconut trees, the benefit will be more,” he said.
He pointed out that 25,800 hectare of land in Goa is under Coconut cultivation but the yield is around 5,000 per hectare, which is against the national average of 12,000 per hectare.
“We are less than half of the national average,” he said.
Sardesai said that Goa could not work on increasing the cultivation of coconut production due to various reasons.
“There are various reasons for that. We have hybrid variety of trees. Yield can be brought up to 40,00 0 per ha.,” he said.
Sardesai said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants to take farmers forward and double their income by 2020.
“We would like to stress on tourism to promote coconut cultivation. The coconuts in Goa could be sold more like Tender Coconuts for high spending tourists,” he said.
“As a minister for agriculture I would like to suggest Tender Coconut policy. How do I suggest it? We have 40 constituencies each one of the MLA should plant 1,000 coconut trees by MLAs into their constituencies,” Sardesai stated.
The minister requested Coconut Board to provide 1,000 seed nuts per assembly constituency. “Start with 10,000 Seed nuts for this financial year and we will plant them in organic areas. In four years, we can have 1,000 coconuts per constituency,” he said.
Sardesai said that the State government will announce Tender Coconut Policy once the board gives the seed nuts.
