Naveen kicks off ‘Akhi Muthi’ on Akshaya Tritiya

Bhubaneswar: Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Saturday kicked off the ‘Akhi Muthi’ ceremony and ploughed land in Pipili of Puri district as farmers across the state observed Akshaya Tritiya marking the beginning of the farming season in the state.

Addressing a farmers’ convention, the Chief Minister said the income of farmers has grown two fold in the last 10 years.

“We have made significant progress in terms of production, productivity and income generation. Keeping the momentum, we will make further improvement in coming years,” said Patnaik.

He said the development of agriculture and farmers have been the top priority of the state government.

The government has set up corpus funds of Rs 100 crore each, for seeds and fertilizers. Besides new agriculture policy and special budget for farmers have been made while the government provides crop loan at one percent interest rate, said the Chief Minister.