Advisor to Lieutenant Governor, K K Sharma, today visited Advanced Centre for Horticulture Research to review progress on Centre of Excellence, Fruits at Udhaywala, Jammu which is being established under MIDH.Advisor Sharma directed for introducing innovative measures in the field of Horticulture in Jammu province under the supervision of Vice Chancellor, SKUAST-Jammu, Professor J P Sharma. There are certain areas like supply chain management, public private partnership and high density plantations which should be considered while developing the sector in the region, he added.Vice Chancellor explained about the status of Centre of Excellence and its working and assured to make it functional very soon. He informed that multiplication of quality planting material of fruits and production of organic bio-inputs for soil and seed treatment is the mandate of the Centre of Excellence. He further briefed that the centre is aimed at to produce and multiply elite planting material for distribution among farmers. The centre will be an institute for training and dissemination of technology to the farmers.Vice Chancellor informed about the already sanctioned faculties, Division of Seed Science Technology and newly established KVKs.
He also apprised about the success of Integrated Farming System model established at SKUAST-Jammu, Chatha and plan to replicate same in all the KVKs of SKUAST-Jammu. He informed about the main areas such as One Commodity One District, Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, Poultry, Artificial Intelligence, ICT and Censor Based technology and value addition, processing, branding and marketing for achieving the target of Doubling Farmer’s Income on which SKUAST-Jammu is working ambitiously.Dr. S. K. Gupta, Director Extension, SKUAST-Jammu informed about the status of three newly established KVKs at Kishtwar, Udhampur and Ramban.Dr. Deepak Kher, Director Planning and Monitoring briefed about the status of the ongoing and pending issues of the University viz, Land Acquisition at Chatha and filling up of the vacant posts in the University.Besides, the faculty also apprised the Advisor of the problem of water logging in SKUAST campus Chatha.Earlier, Advisor inspected Bio-Control, tissue culture laboratories, structures established under Centre of Excellence where Dr. J P Sharma, Associate Director Research and Head, ACHR apprised of various activities being carried out there and establishment of new orchards of citrus, guava and mango at the Centre of Excellence, SKUAST-Jammu, Udheywalla.Dr. R.K. Gupta, Director Research, Inderjeet, Director Agriculture; Ram Savak, Director Horticulture, Rajesh Talwar, Comptroller; Dr. Vikas Tandon and other concerned officers were present on the occasion.