‘One child, one plant’ slogan given for drive
The plant lovers and fruit growers have reasons to cheer as Odisha has become a surplus State in quality planting materials for fruits-bearing trees. The State is not required to import fruit saplings form outside which was the practice till last planting season, according to an official release.
A high-level review meeting in this regard was held under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary JK Mohapatra on Saturday wherein Principal Secretary, Agriculture Rajesh Verma outlined the issues for discussion and Director, Horticulture Sanjeeb Chadha made a presentation on updated status of fruit plantation.
The State has become self-sufficient in fruits-bearing planting materials, Chadha said, adding, “We are now in a position to export some of the species to other States only except the totapuri mango variety.” The State would also soon become self-sufficient in the totapuri variety, he said.
It was stated that at present, around 111.01 lakh planting materials of various fruit species are available in departmental firms, OUAT, OSCD and private nurseries of the State. The saplings have already been allotted to different districts for plantation during the current season, and it is expected that targeted plantation for the current year would be achieved by September.
The Chief Secretary directed undertaking of plantation of fruits-bearing trees in the fenced campuses of the Ashram Schools. “One child, one plant” has been adopted as the slogan for this campaign. Secretary, SC & ST Development Sanjeeb Mishra informed that there are about 3.50 lakh students in Ashram Schools.
The CS also wanted to have ‘sky watch monitoring’ of horticultural plantations through remote sensing devices. It was decided that no permission would be required for cutting of old cashew trees from revenue land for the purposes of replacing them with new saplings as cashew is a non-forest species. The meeting also resolved to carry forward the convergence of horticultural plantation with the OTElP, ITDA and Watershed projects. The funds from MGNREGA have also been earmarked for this activity through convergence.
In the year 2011-12 and 2012-13 fruit plantation was done in around 24,176 and 23,708 hectors respectively. The plantation area increased to 29,020 hectors during the year 2013-14. Action Plan has been drawn for fruit plantation over 32583 hects during 2014-15, thereby marking a growth of around 34% over 2011-12. Mango has been the dominant species of plantation in the State. over the years.
Other species planted include litchi, lime, orange, cashew, aonla, oil palms, banana, sapota, papaya and custard apple. For 2014-15 ground level activities have been taken up for plantation of mangos of different variety over 13,550 hects, litchi over 200 hects, guava over 110 hects, lime over 115 hect., pomegranate over 50 hects., orange over 100, cashew over 7700, coconut over 2666 hects., oil palm over 4800 hects., banana over 2797 hects., papaya over 250 hects. and pine apple over 245 hects..