In a bid to save Himalayas, which is known as youngest one, and promote agriculture in the State because farmers are deserting their land due to panic of wildlife, State Government has decided to plant fruit tree and fodder grass in the State. For this Uttarakhand Purv Sainik Kalyan Nigam limited (UPNl) is going to constitute four companies of Plantation Task Force (PTF) shortly.
Each company would comprise of 56 members and their maximum age would be 45 years. In which 50 per cent reservation will be given to the disaster affected people so that they will get employment and would work seriously in save Himalaya project as well. This was disclosed by the State Agriculture Minister Harak Singh Rawat while interacting with media person in dehradun on tuesday.
It has been noticed that people are deserting their agriculture land because their standing crops are being destroyed by the wildlife. With the help of fruit tree we would be able to provide food to the wildlife so that they do not destroy the crops in the field. In first phase PTF would start plantation drive in disaster affected areas like Rudraprayag, Pauri, Uttarakashi and Pithoragarh. Its expenditure would be around `six crore and will be borne by
the UPNl.Technical support like plants will be provided by the Horticulture department and forestry university Bharsar and fodder and timber variety plant will be provided by forest department. With this plantation drive we would be able to save our Himalaya and will check soil erosion as well.
Besides it, UPNl has also decided to bring around 2000 agitated contractual class III and class IV employee, of GB Pant University, Pantnagar under UPNl.
Earlier they were being employed by the university through private contractor so they (contractors) were not paying them salary or perk according to norms. Now onward they will be deployed as an employee to UPNl through outsourcing. With this decision university will have to spend additional `1.5 crore per annum because employee will be given facility like GPF, insurance and etc.
