Role of link roads in rural economy
By G.S. Dhillon
LINK roads are an important link in the “infrastructure of our rural economy”. The development of the rural roads in the country formed a major thrust area of our Five-Year Plan programmes. During the Eighth Five Year Plan period this activity formed part of the MNP (minimum need programme) and the JRY (Jawahar Rozgar Yojana) and it was aimed at connecting all villages with a population of 1,000 and above with urban centres by construction of short link roads.

Redefining rural poultry
By Deepti and Raman Narang
THE Indian poultry industry is growing at a rate of 8 to 10 per cent for eggs and 15 to 20 per cent for broilers by application of genetic improvement techniques and adoption of modern management practices of poultry husbandry.

Global Mirror: Growing rice with less water
SCIENTISTS report success with new rice planting methods, some based on ancient practices that use much less fresh water — a rapidly dwindling resource in regions where rice is a critical commodity.

Role of link roads in rural economy
By G.S. Dhillon

LINK roads are an important link in the “infrastructure of our rural economy”. The development of the rural roads in the country formed a major thrust area of our Five-Year Plan programmes. During the Eighth Five Year Plan period this activity formed part of the MNP (minimum need programme) and the JRY (Jawahar Rozgar Yojana) and it was aimed at connecting all villages with a population of 1,000 and above with urban centres by construction of short link roads.

In Punjab the task of building link roads was taken up in 1968 under “crash programme” along with the rural electrification work. By the year 1997 almost all the villages of Punjab (except 339 villages of the districts of Kapurthala and Ferozepore) had been provided with at least one “link road” connection.

In the adopted design, though the “overall width of the formation” was kept as 24 feet, the metalled section was 10 feet wide initially. The level of the road was intended to be above the surrounding fields.

The land for the link road was to be made available by the village panchayat out of the “common pool” set aside for common purposes at the time of consolidation of holdings.

Over the compacted earthwork, which formed the sub-grade for the road, flat brick soling was to be laid and on top which a 3-inch thick stone metal was laid and compacted with a flat road roller.

The “black top” comprising two coats of bajri (10 mm gauge) and hot bitumen was specified. In order to ensure adequate thickness of the “black top” the consumption of the materials per 100 square feet of road surface was specified to be 6.5 cubic feet of bajri and 54 ibs of bitumen.

As regards the maintenance, it was specified that resurfacing of the road surface be carried out every five years and during that operation the consumption of bajri and bitumen specified for every 100 square feet of the resurfaced road was to be 2.25 cubic feet and 18 ibs, respectively.

The performance of the link roads built according to these specifications were found not up to the mark so the specifications were amended to increase the thickness of the stone metal to 4 inches and the road surface to 12 feet.

In the initial phase, the task was entrusted to the PWD (B&R), Punjab, and funds were provided in the annual budget of the department.

There was immense enthusiasm among the villagers to get link roads for their villages and long queues were seen out side the door of politicians for sanction of link roads after the villagers had carried out their part of allocation of land and the earthwork for the road. There was a shortage of funds and at first the government decided to supplement the availability of funds by getting funds from the market committees. After 1982-83 the switch-over to the funds made available by the market committees was complete and then onwards no funds were provided for construction or repairs of the link roads by the government in the PWDs budget.

This change led to a change in the construction agency. At first a “wing” was created in the Punjab Mandi Board in 1984 to handle this activity and soon thereafter the entire activity was transferred to the Punjab Mandi Board.

This change led to a spurt in the activity of building the link roads. Many of the influential villagers, after getting the first link to their villages, tried to get a second link and so on. This rush led to relaxation in the imposition of the quality control measures, particularly in regards to the compaction of the sub-grade material. This led to deterioration of the link roads.

The murmur in the beginning turned into loud protests by 1989 and the Punjab Government had to undertake remedial measures.

It was decided to provide per-mix carpet, 20-mm thick, over the link roads needing attention and special equipment needed for the purpose was acquired. The cost of such treatment was estimated to be around Rs 70,000 to Rs 80,000 per km length of the link road carpeted. This may be viewed against the figure of Rs 18,000 to Rs 20,000 per km as cost of original construction of the link road.

For a few years the carpeted roads provided smooth riding surface, but due to increased traffic and delayed maintenance, the “glow” soon faded and by the year 1997-98, most of the link roads were found to be in bad shape and demands for a complete overhaul began surface.

At the present stage the “cosmetic treatment” of the link roads will not serve the purpose. There is need for an in-depth examination of the problem. The trouble due to weak sub-grade needs to be attended first. The width of the road needs to be increased to 18 ft and the formation width available will accommodate this change.

The improved sub-grade can be obtained by the use of the FBA (furnace bottom ash) produced by the thermal plants or the clinker ash produced by the brick-kilns.

Redefining rural poultry
By Deepti and Raman Narang

THE Indian poultry industry is growing at a rate of 8 to 10 per cent for eggs and 15 to 20 per cent for broilers by application of genetic improvement techniques and adoption of modern management practices of poultry husbandry. Spectacular progress in the recent years with a record of 35,000 million eggs during 1996-97 is indeed an achievement. The present egg production per capita per annum is estimated at 35, which is far below the level of 180 eggs recommended by the National Institute of Nutrition and much lower than that of China (245 eggs per year). The egg consumption pattern shows that 75 per cent of the total eggs produced is consumed by just 25 per cent of urbanites. This vast gap in the consumption level leaves considerable room for further production of egg and meat.

A typical traditional poultry two to three decades ago produced most of the eggs and chicken meat. Such a practice not only ensured availability of quality nutrition to the rural people but also provided supplementary income to the family and additional labour employment within the house or village. This has been very important since income from agriculture is seasonal, while income from poultry is throughout the year.

It is estimated that 10 birds in the form of egg or meat can provide the same income as a day’s labour of a woman, which means that the woman can stay at home, take care of children and other family activities without affecting family chores. Usually desi or native fowl is kept by small and marginal farmers, landless labourers, tribesmen and backward class people.

The rural poultry constitutes of native or desi breed. This breed is in fact scavenging type and requires a night shelter for their housing needs. Birds can be fed on kitchen waste as and when available. They can be left to subsist and scavenge by themselves in a garden or village alleys. Desi birds have remarkable tendency to survive on crop residue, insects, worms and green forage.

The rural poultry got a setback as the system became unable to cope up with increasing demand of eggs and meat. Due to low productivity and slower growth rate, the demand and supply gaps increased. The efforts made by the government and private sectors were only diverted to poultry commercialisation in urban areas. For quick improvement of the production potential of the native chicken, males were exchanged by the exotic males without any change in managemental, nutritional and disease control measures. This resulted in a colossal loss among the local and exotic breeds in many areas due to outbreak of numerable diseases. Consequently native poultry population declined from 35 million in 1970 to about 17 million in 1990, and has become extinct in some areas.

Desi fowls have arisen from thousand and thousand years of natural selection. There have been inherent characters of hardiness which need to be exploited. These fowls lay small eggs weighing about 30-35 gm with an average production of 50 to 80 eggs per year per bird and are raised under the scavenging system. Birds are managed in small units with little feed supplementation, no disease control measures and without housing facilities. Under such adverse conditions the birds not only thrive but also play an important role in the economic status of the people below the poverty line. Rearing of five to 20 birds in the backyard system seems to be of negligible importance but the system benefits the marginal farmers significantly. It saves money on eggs, poultry meat and garden fertiliser.

The characteristic flavour of desi fowl eggs and meat appears to be the main attraction of consumers in urban areas. Meat from desi fowl has higher amino acids reflecting good quality protein, lower cholesterol content, thicker brown-shelled eggs and higher dressing percentage than commercial stock. Desi eggs fetch premium in the local market and are more cost effective. Desi fowl rearing requires minimum land use, labour and capital. Once such backyard poultry is started the cycle of future birds continues with our recurrent investment. Native fowls are known to be good forgers, efficient mothers, require less special care to grow and thus have all qualities essential for raising poultry under village conditions.

Native fowl of tropics has an important role as an animal protein food source in the rural areas and needs special attention for their conservation as well as their improvement. Attempts should be made to redefine the existing germplasm in tribal and rural areas for improvement of rural poultry production in India to benefit a large number of the underprivileged of society.

Global Mirror
Growing rice with less water

SCIENTISTS report success with new rice planting methods, some based on ancient practices that use much less fresh water — a rapidly dwindling resource in regions where rice is a critical commodity.

Desperately looking for ways to increase rice production to feed the growing Third World population, researchers say saving water will be a key challenge.

“In Asia, 80 per cent of fresh water goes to agriculture. With increasing urbanisation, that just won’t be available in the future,” said Robert Cantrell of the International Rice Research Institute. Asia produces about 90 per cent of the world’s rice.

The new methods are being developed by farmers with the help of scientists from the United Nation’s Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, which has laboratories throughout the world.

The methods include wet seeding, intermittent irrigation, land levelling, improved weed management and techniques to cultivate cracked soils.

Cantrell, interviewed on the telephone from his offices in Makati city, Philippines, said water-saving techniques would not approach the impact of the rice revolution of the 1960s that in six years saw widespread adoption of new, strong varieties of high-yielding rice across Asia.

“I doubt that we’ll see that again,” he said. But he said hybrid varieties were still being developed, which had allowed rice farmers to keep up with world demand and water-saving methods posed new hope for feeding the world into the next century.

The rice production must increase dramatically to meet the needs of Asia’s poor — 40 per cent in the next three decades, said Ismael Serageldin, CGIAR Chairman and World Bank Vice-President for special programmes.

“With the projected growth of Asian cities and industries and their increased need for fresh water, rice farming must become more water efficient,” he said.

“Using current methods that involve growing rice under water, it takes twice as much water to produce rice than any other cereal crop,” Serageldin said.

Traditionally, rice plants are transplanted as seedlings into flooded fields. With wet seeding, pre-soaked seeds are sown directly into muddied fields, using up to 25 per cent less water.

Cantrell said the method now being tried out in Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines was used by ancient tribes in the region, but nearly all rice farming now was done by flooding fields.

The other new rice-growing methods being developed by farmers and scientists include:

— In China, irrigation is being used to flood fields only after they have been allowed to nearly dry out, repeating the process through the growing period.

— In Cambodia, where many rice paddies are in fields at different levels, upper levels requiring more water. By levelling fields to one flat surface, less water is needed. Initials costs for this method, however, can be high.

— When fields are not flooded, weed management becomes a problem, and several methods are being developed to fight weeds, including weed-resistant rice strains, mechanical devices and chemicals.

— Finally, methods are being developed to crumble soil which has developed cracks that suck up water without letting it soak into the soil. — (AP)

Lawns:

Timely irrigation and frequent mowing is required as the growth of grass is very fast due to rising temperature. In the lawn where “Idabhl” is infested in the grass, expose the area to sum by digging soil in May-June and remove all the weeds from the soil. Proper levelling and grassing of that area may be carried out in July-August.

Annuals:

Judicious watering and weeding of summer season annuals is required and the gaps in the plot should be filled with new plants. The transplanting in the gaps and in newly established beds should be carried out either in the morning or evening only. The nursery beds for the rainy season annuals should be prepared.

Roses:

Due to hot season, roses require judicious watering but over-watering should be avoided. The rootsuckers and diseased/dried parts of plant should be removed frequently.

Chrysanthemum:

In the case of large flowered varieties plants should be repotted and second pinching done in the case of small-flowered Korean varieties.

Permanent plants: Tree, shrubs and climbers should be watered at required intervals of five to seven days. Care should be taken for the newly planted young plants and, if required, staking of young saplings should also be done. Bougainvillaea plants should be pruned after flowering is over.

Pot plants:

The pot plants should be transferred to shady areas in this month to protect them from direct sunlight. Timely watering, twice a week, is required in this month to the pot plants.

Horticultural operations:

The hot weather will be at its peak — and may cause harm to the fruit trees, especially the newly planted plants of tender type. The Fruit trees have more foliage now and fruits are also developing on them. Therefore, irrigate the orchards more frequently and the irrigation interval should be reduced to a week or so keeping in view soil type, kind of plants, etc.

— Pruning of “ber” can be carried out as the “ber” trees shed their leaves and become dormant by the end of this month. Light annual pruning (i.e. heading back of 25 per cent growth plus general thinning out of diseased, broken and crisscross branches) should be practised. After pruning, the plants should be applied with 100 kg well rotten farmyard manure to a full-grown tree.

— To avoid an adverse effect of hot weather on fruit trees apply white-wash on the trunks of the trees, if not done earlier.

— Harvesting of fruit of peach, plum, phalsa, papaya and mature bunches of perlette grapes may be undertaken and marketed after proper grading and packing.

— Spray 500 g Sevin/Hexavin (50 WP) (Carbaryl) or 350 m Thiodan (35EC) or 250 ml Roger (30 EC) (Dimethoate) in 250 litres of water to control leaf hoppers in mango and aphids in peach and pear. To check the attack of insect-pests in citrus, a third spray of 625 ml of Nuvacron 40 EC (Monocrotophos) or 670 ml of Rogor (30 EC) (Demethoate) in 500 litres of water per are should be given.

— Progressive Farming, PAU