The Nongkhnum River Island in Meghalaya, over the years, has become a major tourist attraction- both for the indigenous and outside tourists.

However, what is lacking in Nongkhnum River Island is proper development and tourism infrastructure.

But the days are not far when Nongkhnum River Island will also become a tourist hotspot for people from across the globe and the announcement of a Rs 13 crore tourism infrastructure development package is a step towards achieving this.

The announcement was made on November 15, 2021, by the state CM Conrad Sangma.

It may be mentioned here that Nongkhnum River Island is Asia's second-largest river island after Majuli in Assam.

The CM visited the island with his family and was accompanied by the District Administration officials.

He was in Nongstoin to interact with Producer Groups (PGs), formed under  Farmers’ Collectivisation for Upscaling of Production and Marketing Systems (FOCUS) – a flagship initiative of the state government.

Interacting with the farmers, the Chief Minister said that the government has earmarked Rs.200 crore for farmers welfare programmes in the State.

He said that the government is keen to understand the issues and concerns of the farmers and come up with appropriate policies to ensure maximum benefit reaches the farmers.

“FOCUS is an innovative welfare programme, whereby the government ensures that the farmers are able to enhance their productivity as well as avail benefit of credit linkages and strengthen access to markets,” he added.

He also took the opportunity to inform the gathering that the Government has accorded thrust to ensure that road connectivity in the district is improved.

He also told that the Greater Nongstoin Water Supply Scheme is nearing completion and will be inaugurated soon.

Through this ambitious programme, the Meghalaya Basin Management Authority (MBMA), the nodal implementing agency identifies production clusters of marketable produce, focuses on Value Chain Analysis of the produce, forming bottom-up small collectives known as Producer Groups (PGs), identifying and training extension service providers known as Service Producers (SPs) and building large collectives in the form of Cooperative Societies and Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) through bringing together well functioning PGs.

Funding support is given to all the PGs and the selected Service Providers to take up identified value chain related activities.

Each of the PGs receives a sum that would be equal to the number of members at Rs 5,000 each. This would come to an amount of Rs 50,000 to Rs 1,00,000 for each of the PGs depending upon the number of members in the PG.

In the West Khasi Hills District, the formation of Producer Groups started from March 2021 in Mawshynrut Block and subsequently from July 2021 onwards in Nongstoin Block and altogether around 183 groups have been formed.

The products identified for value chain development are Ginger, Seasonal Vegetables, Broom grass, Sericulture & Arecanut.