The Department of Horticulture Jammu is making concerted efforts to generate awareness among the farming community about plantation of fruit crops amid the monsoon season. In this series, Director Horticulture Jammu, Ram Savak today conducted an extensive tour of District Rajouri and chaired an awareness camp cum interaction programme at Panchayat Seri of Nowshera zone.
Chief Horticulture Officer Rajouri, Madan Lal Tak and other officers besides a large number of farmers including women, sarpanches and PRI members of the area participated in the camp.Addressing the large gathering of farmers, fruit growers, the Director stressed the need to encourage High Density Plantation in the area and adopt cluster approach to establish new orchards.
The department is providing all assistance to the farmers and they should take all the benefits of the centrally and UT sponsored schemes of the department. He urged farmers to adopt integrated farming in their fields and avail the benefits on different components viz: Bore Well, water harvesting tanks, Drip irrigation, Custom Hiring Centres, vermicompost units, protected cultivation, tools & implements etc. for upliftment of their socio- economic status.
The Director also inaugurated a one month training programme on fruit and vegetable preservation at village Narian of Doongi block for women. He impressed upon the women participants to come forward, adopt fruit and vegetable preservation as a profession and establish new preservation and dry fruit processing units with the financial assistance from the department as the govt. is very keen to promote this sector and it will not only provide employment, but also play an important role in enhancing the family income.
He also held discussions with the PRI members/ farmers gave a patient hearing to the demands raised by them and assured them of every possible help from the department.Earlier, Chief Horticulture Officer Rajouri welcomed the Director Horticulture and apprised him about the works going on in the field under different departmental schemes.
He briefed the farmers about the various departmental schemes and said that the border areas of Rajouri district have huge potential for horticulture crops due to diversity in agro climatic conditions.Later, the Director kick- started plantation drive at multiple locations by planting Mango and Citrus plants in the compact farmer’s field at village Kangri of Sunderbani tehsil and Seri of Nowshera zone.
He also visited Thannamandi area and inspected the Modified Ultra High Density plantation of apple trees.Besides Chief Horticulture Officer, Jyoti Parsad DL-SMS (pom.), Sunil Mahnoori MCC, Shafqat khan DHO and HDOs, Arun Kumar and Darvinder Kumar also accompanied the director during the visit.