Rs 9.26 crore Chokpot farmers' market opens for 3,000 Garo Hills growers

Farmers in South Garo Hills have a new place to sell their produce after Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma on Monday inaugurated the Chokpot Farmers' Market, a Rs 9.26 crore facility built for more than 3,000 growers in the area.

The market has been developed by the District Rural Development Agency (DRDA), South Garo Hills. It offers organised selling spaces for farmers who deal in vegetables, fruits, spices and organic produce, Hub News reported.

What the market offers

• Dedicated stalls and selling spaces for local farmers, replacing informal roadside trading.
• Planned links with Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs), Farmer Producer Companies (FPCs) and major agriculture schemes.
• A fixed point where buyers and traders can source produce from the Chokpot area.

In a post on X, Sangma said he was pleased to open the market and dedicated it "to the prosperity of our farmers". He said the facility would improve market access and support livelihoods, and tagged Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and the Union agriculture ministry.

Block offices and border areas

At the event, Sangma also spoke about the renovation of block offices across Meghalaya over the past eight years, calling the upgrades an important part of improving governance and public services. The government has been stressing rural infrastructure and taking administrative and development facilities closer to people in rural and border areas.

Roads still the bigger worry

Getting produce out of Chokpot depends heavily on roads. Last week the North Eastern Council said Meghalaya received Rs 26.56 crore from it in October, the largest share of its Rs 79.53 crore release for the region that month. A major part of Meghalaya's share went to rehabilitating and strengthening the 46.08-km Chokpot-Kharukol road under the North East Special Infrastructure Development Scheme (NESIDS-Roads), a project the council said would benefit 78 villages and more than 15,000 residents.

For farmers in the area, the test will be whether the new market draws enough buyers, and whether better roads make it cheaper to bring harvests in and take them out to bigger markets such as Tura and beyond.