Principal Secretary, Horticulture, Animal and Sheep Husbandry, Navin Kumar Choudhary, convened a meeting regarding finalization of plan under CAPEX budget for the year 2020-21 of Horticulture Department.Principal Secretary exhorted upon the officers to lay special focus on formulation of development oriented schemes for farming community under CAPEX budget.Director, Horticulture Department Jammu, Ram Sevak; Director, Horticulture, Planning and Marketing (J&K), Imam Din; Director Finance (Agriculture Production) Department Imtiyaz Ahmad Wani besides senior officers of concerned departments were present in the meeting.Director, Horticulture Kashmir, Ajaz Ahmad Bhat; Managing Director, Jammu and Kashmir Horticulture Produce Marketing and Processing Corporation (JKHPMC), Shafat Sultan attended the meeting through video conferencing.HoDs of Horticulture department and its allied wings presented the outlay of budget allocation for the current year.Navin discussed activity wise capital expenditure of horticulture sector in Jammu and Kashmir. He laid stress on realization of targets and spending the resources strictly under the budgetary provisions.Highlighting vast potential of Aloe Vera cultivation in Kandi belts, Principal Secretary asked the MD JKHPMC for establishment of nursery and two Aloe Vera processing units in Samba district to facilitate the farmers here with enhanced scope for boosting their economy.Navin asked the Director Horticulture Kashmir and MD JKHPMC to prepare a proposal for establishment and augmentation of controlled atmosphere (CA) storage facilities at Kashmir and New Delhi to benefit the fruit growers of Valley.He called upon the concerned officers to evolve farmer friendly schemes, new concepts and innovations by adopting multi-cropping system in the potential areas to enhance production and productivity in the UT of J&K.
He also directed for departmental nurseries to be setup to provide quality fruit saplings to growers for crops including citrus, litchi, mango, apple, picanut etc.He asked for promotion of Horticulture cultivation in every district with focus on far flung areas by adopting integrated farming and Cluster approach through Panchayat representatives’ involvement. He called for making optimum use of available resources and formulation of innovative projects to help boost the rural economy. He also laid stress on developing high density nurseries and providing advanced technologies to the farmers so that they can adopt these concepts for enhancing the production.It was decided that a new scheme; incentives for horticulture plantation would be introduced for development of Horticulture in all the districts of Jammu.To contain the spread of Coronavirus, Navin Choudhary directed the officers to encourage the farmers for mandatory wearing of masks and maintaining safe physical distancing while visiting farm fields.Navin Choudhary asked Director Horticulture (P&M) to procure fumigation and sanitation equipments for cleaning and disinfection of Mandis. He also directed for upgradation and renovation of existing Mandis including mandis at Narwal, Bandipora and Sopore besides installation of mast lights.For popularization of post harvest management mechanization and generation & dissemination of latest technology, Principal Secretary stressed for attractive designing of departmental- website besides promotion of KISAN RATH Mobile App among the farmers, which facilitates the farmers and traders across the country for transportation of agri-produce by connecting them with the transporters. The app interface provides a wide range of transport vehicles at required date and place, in a quick and easy way, he stated.