Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb on Sunday announced that to motivate cattle rearing in the State he will introduce cows in the Chief Minister’s official residence and so that his families’ milk demand is fulfilled from it.
Deb said this at the end of the valedictory program of the three-day ‘Chintan Shibir’ at Pragna Bhavan in Agartala on Sunday.
He said, “The maximum potential for growth of Tripura is in the agriculture sector, animal husbandry sector, tourism sector and food processing. At present we have targeted these four-five sectors and besides these, we have separate beneficiary schemes for the common public. However, if you want to get financially stable then you have to target these sectors and move in a mission mode, so we are going to appoint mission directors and fixed time will be fixed for completion of the assigned mission.”
He added, “Today here I am making the announcement to you that I will also start keeping cow at my house (official residence of the Chief Minister) so that my family members’ demand of consumption of milk is fulfilled from them. So once I start rearing cattle, throughout Tripura people will also start and which will solve the problem of malnutrition in our State besides huge profit. I am determined to do this besides throughout the State I am going to launch a scheme for distributing cows among women of five thousand families in several pockets. See I am not against setting big industries but in that one has to invest Rs 10,000 crores for employing 2000 people but here if I distribute 10,000 cows among 5000 families they shall start getting income within six months. Is there any industry that starts giving income in six month’s time, it takes six months for purchasing land.”
Earlier, Deb was mired in controversy and criticized for advising the youths of Tripura not to waste their crucial time running behind politicians for government jobs and rather during that period had they even reared cow they could have become self-employed and accumulated large amount as Tripura is a milk-deficient State where a litre sells for Rs 50.
When asked about criticism for his advice to youths to rather rear cattle and not run behind the politicians, Deb said that he knows what is better and suitable for his State than anyone else who is criticizing and commenting from a far away place and without any study or knowing the ground reality.
Meantime, during the Chintan Shibir, presentations, panel discussions, expert commentary, and open discussions on various topics especially towards transforming Tripura through creative and innovative ideas were held to find out of the box concepts for the development of the State.
The first such brainstorming session ‘Chintan Shibir’ was held in 2004 in Gujarat when Narendra Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat.