Punjab Rural Development & Panchayats, NRI Affairs, Agriculture and Farmers Welfare minister Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal, on Friday, inaugurated 3rd India Agri Progress Expo at Ludhiana Exhibition Centre, GT Road, Sahnewal Ludhiana.
After inaugurating the exhibition, Dhaliwal checked the latest machinery exhibited by various exhibitors and also enquired about the uses, price and advantages of the machinery.
While addressing the gathering at the exhibition centre, Dhaliwal thanked the organisers for providing a platform where companies can reach out to the farmers and can make them aware about the latest technologies.
He added that 72 percent of Punjabis are directly or indirectly linked with farming and so if the farming sector will suffer, the economy of the state will suffer. Therefore, the Punjab Government, led by CM Bhagwant Mann, will support each and every business or idea which will help in making the agriculture sector profitable.
He stressed that in Punjab maximum farmers are small and marginal, who have less than 5 acres of farming land, therefore, supporting such farmers is the need of the hour. “I request companies to manufacture machines keeping these small and marginal farmers as their target customers. The price of machinery should not be more than 1 lakhs,” he said.
He said that before AAP came into power, even the state agriculture department was not reaching out to these small farmers. “Now, we are making efforts to support these farmers so that we can witness actual progress in this sector in the coming days," he said.
Dhaliwal also said that in the paddy harvesting season, the small farmers were provided with machinery like Happy Seeder and with the support of these farmers we were able to reduce stubble burning by 30 percent.
“But our aim is to eliminate stubble burning practice. Therefore, we have to come up with affordable machinery so that small farmers can easily purchase and bring it in use,” he said.There are over 3000 machines on live display by over 200 companies from across the country.
The first day of the exhibition witnessed over 5000 footfall of the visitors which included farmers, students and experts from agricultural institutes, traders who deal in agri machinery, and others.
GS Dhillon, Managing Director, Udan Media and Communication Pvt Ltd said that in the exhibition the machinery like drone technology, sprayers, combines, tractors, super seeder, straw reapers, laser leveller, thresher, power tiller, Disc harrow, etc are on display. Plus top quality prom dairy equipment, food processing machinery have been exhibited by over 200 companies.
Dhaliwal was accompanied by MLA Sahnewal Hardeep Singh Mundian, Baldev Singh, Chairman, Punjab State Agricultural Implements Manufacturers Association (PSAIMA), Sarabjeet Singh, Vice President, Agricultural Machinery Manufacturers Association -India (AMMA, India), GS Dhillon, Managing Director, Udan Media and Communication Pvt Ltd; Gurpreet Singh Kahlon, members (SI) National Board for MSME, Govt Of India, Ministry of MSME; Bhola Jha, Member of State Level Disha Committee (Punjab) and others.
MLA Mundian said that the Punjab government will wholeheartedly support the exhibition.Baldev Singh said that 'India Agri Progress Expo- 2023' , is a one-stop platform where farmers, farm machinery manufacturers, policy makers and spare parts industry will gather and this will help in enhancing the farming sector.
The 3rd India Agri Progress Expo is an international exhibition on agriculture machinery and dairy technology which is organised by Udan Media and Communication Pvt. Ltd. in support of the Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Govt. Of India;
The Group of 20 (G20); Bureau of Indian Standards: Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) and ICAR. It is a three day expo which will conclude on January 23.The Expo is being organised in association with Punjab State Agriculture Implement Manufacturer Association and is highly supported by Agricultural Machinery Manufacturers Association.