Minister for Agriculture Ghulam Nabi Lone Hanjura and Minister for Education Syed Mohammad Altaf Bukhari today laid down the foundation stone of mushroom lab here at Agriculture Complex Lal Mandi.The three story lab would be set up at an estimated cost of Rs 2.56 crore.On this occasion, Director Agriculture Kashmir, Joint director Inputs and other senior officers of the agriculture department were present. Later, the Minister for Agriculture held a review meeting of various state and centrally sponsored schemes started by Agriculture department in Kashmir valley.During the meeting, the Minister was given a comprehensive outlook about the production of saffron, paddy, maize, wheat, fodder, pulses, vegetables, oil-seed and other crops in current and previous years. The Minister was informed that 4.26 kgs of saffron per hectare production were recorded for 2015-16, while the saffron production of 4.28 kgs per hectare was registered in 2016-17.
Similarly for Paddy 54 qts per hectare were recorded for 2015-16, while for 2016-17 57.24 qts per hectare were recorded for 2016-17. For 2015-16, the maize production of 21.31 qts per hectare was recorded and for the following year of 2016-17 24.08 qts per hectare, were recorded. Likewise, 32.28 qts per hectare of maize production was recorded in 2017-18. 316 qts per hectare of vegetable production was recorded in 2015-16, while 318 qts per hectare were recorded in 2016-17 and 325 qts per hectare in 2017-18.Speaking on this occasion, Hanjura said that for the last three years, State Government has initiated a number of new schemes in the agriculture sector to increase the productivity of various crops.He said that these new schemes have shown positive results on ground and farmers are largely getting benefited out of these schemes. The Agriculture Minister said that with the kind support of Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti and Finance Minister Dr Hasseb Drabu, the new schemes would soon be started in the State.
During the meeting, the Minister stressed upon the officers and field functionaries of the department to gear up and work in a dedicated manner for effective implementation of different centrally and State-sponsored schemes.The Minister directed the concerned to organize awareness camps for generating mass awareness among the farmers regarding technical know-how of the field. He laid special emphasis on the optimal utilization of the available resources.Director Agriculture Kashmir, Joint Director Extension inputs, Chief Agriculture officers, district agriculture officers and heads of all the schemes were present on the occasion.