Sandipan Bhumre, Minister for Employment Guarantee and Horticulture of the Maharashtra province, visited the Centre of Excellence (COE) for Vegetables (Kartarpur) and Centre of Excellence for Potato (Dhogri) today. The minister was accompanied by Dr. Mote Kailas, Director Horticulture, Maharashtra, and other officials to see various horticultural activities at both centers.
Director Horticulture (Punjab) Shailender Kaur (IFS) gave a warm welcome to the guests and briefed them about various activities in the centers. Dr. Lal Bahadur, Assistant Director Horticulture-cum- Controlling Officer, COE’s Jalandhar and Hoshiarpur, and Dr. Sukdeep Singh Hundal, Deputy Director Horticulture, Jalandhar, explained the scenario of Punjab on the basis of horticulture and diversification in agriculture.
Dr. Daljit Singh Gill, Assistant Director Horticulture-cum-Project Officer, CEV Kartarpur, and Dr. Damandeep Singh, Project Officer, CEP Dhogri, gave short presentations explaining the importance of their projects and their direct benefit to the farmers. They explained the facilities created at the respective centers for the demonstration to the entrepreneurs and farmers.
Dr. Gill said as many as 33 three-day training programs on protected cultivation of vegetables have been conducted to date. In these programs, more than 1,157 farmers have been trained by this CEV who are diversifying their farming from traditional methods to new technologies. He explained that training on the production of disease-free vegetable seedlings, open-field production of vegetables, polyhouse production of vegetables, and Post Harvest Management is being provided to the farmers. He also briefed that to date, more than 1.56 crore healthy vegetable seedlings have been supplied to the Punjab farmers and interested people for kitchen gardening.
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