Trainee IAS officers on winter study tour

Ambika Sharma

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As many as 18 IAS trainee officers of 2017 batch from the Lal Bahadur National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie, visited the university as part of their winter study tour. The group interacted with Vice-Chancellor Dr HC Sharma, Registrar Rajesh Kumar and Director Research Dr JN Sharma.The Vice-Chancellor urged the officers to address social and ethical issues of the people and work towards achieving the Prime Minister’s dream of doubling farm income by 2022. He also apprised them of the issues concerning the agrarian sector.Sharma, gave a brief background about the university and explained about the academic, research and extension activities carried out by it. The group also visited the farms of the Floriculture and Landscape Department where research was being carried out by the scientists.

Beekeeping training

A week-long training programme on beekeeping was conducted at the university where 25 farmers from Shimla, Solan and Sirmour districts participated. The National Bee Board had sponsored this programme which was organised by the Department of Entomology. During the training, the participants learned about bee management, lifestyle of bees and their role in pollination. They were also apprised about the importance of queen bees. Programme co-ordinator Dr Harish Sharma said the farmers were also given information about traditional beekeeping so that they could start small-scale ventures. Dr Narender Sharma, Dean College of Horticulture, explained how bees were helpful in pollination and in getting high yield of various crops. Senior scientist Dr Jitender Kumar Gupta asked the participants to explore entrepreneurship in this field or even start beekeeping as a hobby.

Pumpkin-based food products

A 3-day training programme on value-added pumpkin-based food products was organised by the Food Science and Technology Department where 21 women from rural areas of Solan, Hamirpur, Mandi and Bilaspur participated. Simple value-addition techniques has helped to prepare products like jam, pickle, porridge, biscuits, sauce, drinks etc, which can fetch a good price in the market. These techniques can be adopted easily and entrepreneurship opportunities can be explored in this field,” informed Dr Anju Dhiman, Professor and Head of Food Science and Technology Department. Explaining about the programme, the training coordinator, Dr Surekha Attri, said the women were given technical expertise through practical sessions on how to make various value-added pumpkin-based food products like tutti-frutti, jams, candies, pumpkin pulp, drinks and instant products. The participants were also given details about setting up a processing centre.

Plants for sale

Various varieties of fruits plants will been made available for sale to farmers on the university campus on January 2. Over 97,000 saplings will be put up for sale and the endeavour is aimed at generating income for the university apart from providing quality planting material to the farmers.Various high yielding varieties of apple, kiwi, pomegranate, apricot, peach, nectarine, cherry, walnut, pecan nut, persimmon, pear, plum and almond will be on sale. These plants have been prepared at the Model Farm and the Seed Science and Fruit Science Departments of the university. In addition to this, over 1.2 lakh fruit plants have been prepared by the various Krishi Vigyan Kendras and research stations of the university. These include the KVK at Kandaghat, Sharbo, Rohru, Chamba and the Regional Horticulture Research and Training Stations at Mashobra and Bajaura.