Horticulture Dept holds orchardists’ camp at Anantnag

Srinagar, Sept 3: Director Horticulture Kashmir, G. R. Mir (JKAS), Saturday toured district Anantnag and visited the Fruit Plant Nursery Bijbehara and presided over District Level Awareness cum Training Camp organized by the department as Chief Guest. The camp was attended by more than 100 orchardists besides, a good number of Panchayat Raj Institution (PRI) members. The main purpose of the training/awareness camp was to aware the farmers about the different Departmental Schemes in vogue, particularly Modified High Density Plantation Scheme.

The Director was accompanied by Chief Horticulture Officer, Anantnag, District Level Subject Matter Specialist, Anantnag and officers of the Department.

At the outset of function Chief Horticulture Officer Anantnag, welcomed the Director and other participants to the camp. He then highlighted the present scenario of the Horticulture sector in the district and appraised the participants about various developmental schemes including Modified High-Density Plantation Scheme.

Addressing the gathering, Director Horticulture, elaborated in detail about the incentives available under the various centrally and UT sponsored schemes of the department viz. MIDH, PMDP, SMAM, PMKSY, CAPEX, NHB etc., and urged the farmers to come forward and avail the benefits under these schemes. During the Event, authorization letters of different components were also distributed amongst beneficiaries.

Later, Director Horticulture visited private fruit plant nurseries established with the support of the Department at Wanihama. He also visited various newly developed High-Density orchards in the area. He appreciated the hard work of the orchardists and encouraged the farmers of the area particularly marginal and small farmers to come forward and take the advantage of High-Density Scheme. He further added that shifting to High Density Plantation is the only way forward to increase the production and productivity and to compete with the international market. He also gave on spot instructions to the Chief Horticulture Officer to give vide publicity to all schemes particularly the Modified High-Density Scheme by holding awareness camp at village and block levels. Thereafter, he inspected various Departmental Nurseries of the district and took stock of various developmental activities/horticultural operations being carried out there. He stressed upon the timely completion of budding and emphasized on the judicious use of inputs, so as to propagate quality fruit plants. He further emphasized on the need of producing maximum number of quality planting material.