Mangala Rai, Vice-Chancellor of the G B Pant University of Agriculture and Technology (GBPUAT), Pantnagar inaugurated a Fertilizer Orientation Course-2015 at the university campus in Pantnagar on Wednesday. In his inaugural speech he said "There is an immediate need of a policy for use of area specific-fertilizer in the country to increase fertilizer-use efficiency and productivity".

He added that imbalanced use of fertilizers has not only resulted in deficiency of micronutrients in different areas but also increased nitrogen gas quantity in the atmosphere. It has also resulted in decrease in fertilizer-use efficiency and microorganism fauna in the soil, the VC further said.

He maintained that soil biota and soil health is adversely affected due to decrease in carbon content of the soil because of less application of carbonic fertilizer and green manure. He advocated for a national policy on use of slow-releasing fertiliser and fortified fertiliser, like zincated urea, with regionally differentiated strategy along with subsidy.

J Kumar, Dean Agriculture, GBPUAT, Pantnagar   describing  Indian agriculture as single largest private enterprise, helping in food security, poverty elevation and employment generation, said that now the productivity of crops is declining and increase in fertilizer use is not increasing the production proportionately.  He stressed on the need to seriously address this issue.

 Among others head of the department of the soil science, GBPUAT,  Ramesh Chandra and associate professor, K P S  Raverkar were  present on the occasion. Many post-graduate students of the college are also attending the two-day orientation course.