President: Young scientists must contribute to nation’s progress

Parveen Arora

Karnal, April 24

President Droupadi Murmu on Monday called upon the young scientists to contribute significantly to the progress of the nation and become entrepreneurs to create jobs along with getting employment in the dairy industry.

“There are immense possibilities for growth in the dairy sector and the young scientists should take advantage of these possibilities,” she said while chairing the 19th convocation ceremony of the National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI) at Dr Sundaresan Auditorium of the ICAR-NDRI, here.

She conferred gold medals and degrees on six students. The remaining 536 degrees were given to students by Dr Himanshu Pathak, Director-General, Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR). Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar also conferred honoris causa on Dr Ramesh Chandra, member, Planning Commission, Dr BN Mathur, former Director, ICAR-NDRI, and Dr MS. Chauhan, V-C, Govind Ballabh Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, for their outstanding contribution in the sphere of dairy science.

Murmu started her speech, which lasted for 10 minutes, by highlighting the contribution of the farmers of Haryana and Punjab.

She highlighted the contribution of the dairy sector to the Indian economy and said: “India is the largest producer of milk in the world and our country produces nearly 22 per cent of the world’s milk. The dairy sector contributes about 5 per cent to the country’s GDP.”

Murmu also appreciated the contribution of women in the dairy sector and said more than 70 per cent of the participants in the dairy sector were women. “It is a matter of happiness that today more than one-third of the degree awardees are girls and 50 per cent of the gold medallists are also girls. The dairy sector holds special importance in making women self-reliant and in bringing changes in their social and economic status. To ensure that women have equal rights and equal opportunities to lead, we need to provide more opportunities for training and skill development of women along with providing them easy loans,” she added.

Lauding the food habits of the state, the President said because of its healthy and pure delicacies, the state was called Desha mein desh Hariyaana, jahaan doodh-dahee ka khana.

Haryana Governor Bandaru Dattatraya counted some challenges like changing weather, increasing input cost, emergence of new diseases and lack of awareness about animal welfare measures and exhorted the passing out students to overcome the challenges.

The Chief Minister said the state government would provide loans to unemployed youth who are interested in running the dairy industry, which would help in making them self-employed.

Describing the farmers of Haryana as ‘hardworking’, Khattar said the availability of milk in the country was 444 gm per person per day, whereas, in Haryana, it was 1,127 gm. He urged the NDRI Vice Chancellor, Dr Dheer Singh, to organise a get-together of the alumni so that the students could take inspiration from them.

NDRI lauded for creating superior quality breeds

• The President appreciated the contribution of the NDRI in nurturing their talent and also creating superior quality breeds of cows and buffaloes through animal cloning methods to augment milk production
• She also talked about the research of the NDRI on fodder for animals, resilient animals under climate change and animal diseases. She also underscored controlling the emissions of greenhouse gases