Maharashtra horticulture minister visits vegetable, potato centres

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, October 4

Sandipan Bhumre, Minister for Employment Guarantee and Horticulture, Maharashtra, visited the Centre of Excellence (COE) for Vegetables (Kartarpur) and Centre of Excellence for Potato (Dhogri) today. The minister was accompanied by Dr Mote Kailas, Director Horticulture, Maharashtra, and other officials to see various horticultural activities at both the centres.

Director Horticulture (Punjab) Shailender Kaur (IFS) gave warm welcome to the guests and briefed them about various activities of the centres. Dr Lal Bahadur, Assistant Director Horticulture-cum- Controlling Officer, COE’s Jalandhar and Hoshiarpur, and Dr Sukdeep Singh Hundal, Deputy Director Horticulture, Jalandhar, explained the scenario of Punjab on the basis of horticulture and diversification in agriculture.

Dr Daljit Singh Gill, Assistant Director Horticulture-cum-Project Officer, CEV Kartarpur, and Dr Damandeep Singh, Project Officer, CEP Dhogri, gave short presentations explaining importance of their projects and their direct benefit to the farmers. They explained about the facilities created at the respective centres for demonstration to the entrepreneurs and farmers.

Dr Gill said till date as many as 33 three-day training programmes on protected cultivation of vegetables have been conducted in which more than 1,157 farmers have been trained by this CEV which are diversifying their farming from traditional method to new technology.

He explained that training on production of disease-free vegetable seedlings, open field production of vegetables, polyhouse production of vegetables and Post Harvest Management is being provided to the farmers. He also briefed that till date more than 1.56 crore healthy vegetable seedlings have been supplied to the Punjab farmers and interested people for kitchen gardening.

During this visit, Balbir Raj Singh, SDM Jalandhar-II, was also present. During the CEP visit, the project officer Dr Damandeep Singh briefed the delegates about the current potato status of Punjab and the importance of excellence centre facilities. He explained the hi-tech seed potato production techniques viz aeroponics and tissue culture.

Elaborating the impact of potato centre on the farmers, the delegates showed keen interest in new techniques adopted by Punjab and actively participated in the discussion. Dr Paramjit Singh, Nodal Officer (Potato), Punjab, briefed about the Seed Potato Act. After the discussion, the delegates visited various facilities created at respective centres to see the live demonstrations.

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