In a move to train nearly one lakh youth of the State as a part of its agriculture diversification programme, Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on Saturday approved the programme for training of youth for self-employment in agriculture and allied activities.
This decision was taken by Badal while presiding over a meeting of the senior officers of the Horticulture and Agriculture department.The Chief Minister asked the Financial Commissioner Development (FCD) to work out the modalities for imparting training to the youth for enabling them to take up agriculture and allied activities like dairy, fisheries, mushroom, piggery, goatry, bee-keeping etc. as self-employed ventures.
Badal also asked the FCD to look into the ways and means for establishing the State board for promotion and development of bee-keeping in a mission mode and appoint a senior officer not below the rank of Joint/Additional Director of the Horticulture department as its mission director.The Director horticulture apprised Badal in the meeting that there were nearly 33,000 bee-keepers in State at present who had adopted bee-keeping as business.
The Chief Minister said that more bee-keepers should be encouraged to take up bee-keeping as an allied agriculture vocation and we should at least fix a target of one lakh people to be engaged in bee-keeping.
Badal also gave nod to the action plan of Horticulture department of Rs 75 crore for the year 2013-14 under National Horticulture Mission (NHM) as the state had already got Rs 30 crore as first installment from Government of India. Under the approved State program of horticulture, new orchards of high yielding varieties of fruits would be established besides setting up of three hi-tech nurseries, of two would be of kinnow and one of guava to provide the best quality and disease resistant plants of these fruits to the farmers.
He also gave nod to establish Centre of excellence for treatment of Brackish Water at Bathinda at the cost of nearly Rs 7 crore which would suggest remedies to the farmers for the treatment of brackish water especially in the waterlogged areas.The FCD assured Badal that horticulture would be soon become a major thrust area after agriculture as the farmers have already realised the higher margin of profits in the cultivation of fruits, vegetables and flowers as compare to traditional crops even on small holding.