IMPHAL, January 18: The first ever Agro Tourism project in the State is coming up without any support from the State government at the Lisam Lok hillock and Thoubal Khunou in the middle of this year under the guidance of Oinam Indira, advisor of Women Income Generation Centre (WIGC), Thoubal.
Briefing media-persons about the project, Indira said the Agro tourism project is slated to be completed by 2018. WIGC came up with the idea of starting the agro tourism project eight years ago. Under the agro-tourism project, several rare species of plants and trees have been planted.
With the help of the State Forest department, around one lakh U-Ningthou saplings were planted but only around 78, 000 have survived. The U-Ningthou plantation is included in the Agro tourism project to serve educational purposes. The Agro Tourism project covers around 1000 Sangams of paddy field in the Lisam Lok hillock and Thoubal Khunou, she added.
The main objective of the project is to encourage organic farming in the state. Under the project, spices and other horticultural products will also be grown. The project intends to offer a variety of vegetables to tourist, said Indira.
`For the last eight years, WIGC has not taken any help from the government but with the help of the Union government everything is going smoothly. Around three lakh bamboos of seven different species have been planted so far in an exclusive area as a part of the project. Only 130 varieties of bamboos have been discovered in India and WIGC is trying to grow the maximum varieties of bamboos by consulting experts well acquainted with bamboo plants. We are trying to import various species of bamboos from other states which are not found in our state`, he said.
If anybody wants to study or do research on bamboos from other places, it will help boost the State`™s economy. Generation of revenue from tourism is vital for the State and tourism is also a part of education, so we are opening our facilities for research studies, Indira said.
`Kouna is also one of the plants successfully grown here so any student who wants to do research on the plant can do their research work here too. Here, the facilities are open to students of the Agriculture University to conduct their research studies. There are a lot of spaces for those youths who don`t have any appropriate land and want to start organic farm`, she said.
The area belongs to Lisam Lok village authorities but since WIGC has been collaborating with them for a long time they donated the area covering around 800 Sangams of paddy field, she added.