A high level delegation led by Dr. Martin Kropff, Director General of International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT) today called on Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal to apprise him the progress of the prestigious Centre of ‘Borlaug Institute for South Asia’ (BISA) that was being established in the state at Ludhiana under the auspices of Mexico-based International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT).Disclosing this here today a spokesperson of the Chief Minister’s office said that during the meeting Badal impressed upon the DG CIMMYT that the infrastructure for the cutting edge research relating to varietal development and climate change must be created on priority. CM also asked Director General to make each unit functional simultaneously as its Infrastructure being raised instead of waiting the constructional of entire Institution and then made it functional.
He also hoped that this Institute would prove to be a mile stone to herald the second green revolution by encouraging the value added crops like Maize, Basmati and Oil seeds ultimately helping our farmers to come out of the rut of wheat-paddy cycle. At the same time the Chief Minister assured them fulsome support from the Punjab Government and also to personally take up the matter with the Union Government for the easy and adequate fund flow for the creation of infrastructure at the Ladowal (Ludhiana).
The Director General Dr. Martin Kropff informed the Chief Minister that considering the strong desire and concern of Mr. Badal to improve the financial condition of state’s agriculture sector by bailing out the beleaguered farmers, who had been plummeting financially day by day because of non- remunerative price of their produce, the BISA had decided to setup their headquarter at Ludhiana after the entire construction work would be completed. Expressing his gratitude to the Chief Minister for all the help and Cooperation from the state government side, he said that they have already initiated the research work at various levels with the help of PAU Ludhiana to develop new verity crops of better yield with less consumption of water besides preserving soil health by enhancing the Nitrogen contents in it.
Expressing satisfaction over the progress ,Mr. Badal impressed upon the BISA to set up ‘Demo Farms’ in the different parts of the state so that scientific research in different agro-climatic zones could actually benefit the farmers thereby enhancing the quality and productivity of different crops. Besides CIMMYT’s Director General, Dr. Martin Kropff, Mrs. Nynke Kropff, Dr. John Snape, Dr. Thomas A Lumpkin (all from CIMMYT) and Dr. H.S Gupta, DG, BISA was included in the delegation. On the other hand Financial Commissioner Development Mr. Suresh Kumar, Special Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister Mr. Gaggandip Singh Brar, and Chief Soil Conservator Dr. BS Sidhu were also present during the meeting.