Director General CIMMYT (The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center) Dr. Thomas Lumpkin today called on Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal to update him about the progress of upcoming Borlaug Institute for South Asia’ (BISA) in Ludhiana.
Dr. Lumpkin met the Chief Minister here at his official residence this morning and sought his personal intervention to resolve certain issues related to setting up BISA at the level of state government and GoI expeditiously. Badal assured him that he would soon convene a special meeting of senior officers of the Government and VC PAU Ludhiana to sort out all the pending issues to ensure timely completion of the prestigious institute. Badal also asked Dr. Lumpkin to flag all the important issues to be taken up with the GoI in writing so that he could personally follow up the matter with the Ministries of Agriculture and Finance.Dr. Lumpkin informed Badal that the BISA would herald a second green revolution in terms of persification of agriculture in Punjab by motivating the local farmers to go for value added crops like maize and oil seeds ultimately helping them to come out of the rut of wheat-paddy cycle. Showing deep concern over the depleting water in the state, Dr. Lumpkin said BISA could play a pro active role to encourage the farmers to grow crops which needed less water like Maize, pulses and Oil seeds as compared to Paddy.The Chief Minister evinced keen interest in the cultivation of high yielding varieties of Kharif Maize developed by CIMMYT. Dr. Lumpkin told the Chief Minister that CIMMYT had two specialized global programmes: the Global Wheat Program and the Global Maize Program. Both programs specialized in breeding varieties of their respective crop that were high yielding and adapted to withstand specific environmental constraints, such as infertile soils, drought, insects, and diseases. Badal urged Dr. Lumpkin to recommend special varities of kharif Maize so that the maximum area could be brought under the cultivation of maize. The Chief Minister apprised Dr. Lumpkin at present 1.5 lac hectares of land was under maize in Punjab and we have proposed it to further enhance to 7.5 lac hectares, thereby bringing more area of 6 lac hectares under maize cultivation to give much needed impetus towards persification of Agriculture. Badal hoped that BISA would go a long way towards the much required second push for Green Revolution in the agrarian state where the traditional agriculture had already reached at a point of saturation.
Prominent amongst other who attended the meeting included Financial Commissioner Development G.S.Sandhu, Special Principal Secretary to Chief Minister Gaggandip Singh Brar, MD Milkfed Dr. Balwinder Singh Sidhu, besides Director Research South Asia Dr. Etienne Duveiller, Country Head Dr. Ajai Kumar and International Research Scientist PAU H.S. Sidhu.