Divineguma to focus on poultry, livestock, fisheries

Chaminda PERERA

After the enormous success of the first stage of the Divineguma programme, the government is to launch its second, third and fourth stages which will mainly focus on poultry, livestock, fisheries industries, under the close supervision of Economic Development Minister Basil Rajapaksa.

The first phase of the Divineguma programme mainly focused on boosting agricultural production of one million families and this programme has recorded immense progress.

The Divineguma programme was launched by the Economic Development Ministry to uplift the capacity of low income facilities.

According to Presidential Advisor and former IGP Chandra Fernando, the Economic Development Ministry will provide assistance to a number of selected families in each Grama Niladhari division for poultry, livestock and fisheries industries. He said that families will also be encouraged to grow export crops, such as, cinnamon, pepper, cocoa and cloves. A number of programmes are in the pipeline under the industry category. A number of projects related to apparel manufacturing, food processing and beauti culture would begin under this category.

These projects would be implemented in seven districts. The ministry in coordination with the Grama Niladharis, Samurdhi officers and other government servants in the villages are in the process of selecting the persons.

Those wishing to undertake such projects would be given a proper training and equipment. Officials will closely monitor the progress of these proejcts at village and DS level. Over 14 projects will be implemented under the fisheries and livestock category and the government officials have already provided training to the persons who will undertake these projects too. Those persons willing to initiate minor export crop cultivation would be given cocoa, cinnamon, cloves and pepper plants. These plants would be provided to the beneficiaries after identifying their capacity and requirements. The plants would be distributed only through Agrarian Services Centres.