The proposed Horticulture University in Haryana, announced in the Union Budget by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, is expected to boost horticulture production not only in Haryana but entire north India.
Except Dr Yashwant Singh Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry at Solan in Himachal Pradesh, there is no horticulture university in the entire northern belt where fruit production is increasing.
Horticulturists in the region said none of the State Governments including Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Delhi ever felt the necessity to focus on horticulture as they included it in agriculture.
Presently, research and development of horticulture is taking place in the agriculture universities like in Punjab Agricultural University in ludhiana and CCS Haryana Agricultural University at Hisar.
Though, the Haryana Government established separate directorate of horticulture in Panchkula, yet complete research and development is still in the hands of horticulture department under CCS Haryana Agricultural University at Hisar.
Directorate of horticulture department Haryana, deals with production and maintenance of fruits, vegetables, and flowers, spices mushroom, medicinal and aromatic plants.
Dr AS Saini, Director General of directorate of horticulture department, Haryana, said there was need to pay serious attention towards research and development in horticulture, especially to sustain the new technology in fruits, vegetables, flowers, breeding of new varieties and its testing.
“As majority of Horticulture crops, being perishable in nature, require systematic planning for their development, the proposed horticulture university would certainly help us to integrate all the things at one place, besides giving proper atmosphere to research and development on different existing and new varieties of fruits, vegetables and flowers,” said Dr Saini.
He said time has come for agricultural diversification and shift to horticulture, fisheries, Dairy and animal husbandry for rural prosperity and sustainability.
"Horticulture sector provides increased employment opportunities, better return per unit area besides filling the nutritional gaps and the farmers have also started taking up horticulture crops as a separate viable economic activity," said Dr Saini.
Improvement in productivity, yield and quality of horticulture produce, besides dissemination of latest technology to farmers and increasing in income per unit has become the need of hour, which is possible only after such big institution for this sector separately, he added.
“We are establishing processing Industries in fruits (mango, citrus, aonla, strawberry) and vegetables (pea, tomato, potato, carrots, garlic, onion) besides export of Mango, Citrus-kinnow and Vegetables to Far East, and working on several schemes of National Horticulture Mission, Micro-Irrigation and National Mission on Medicinal Plants”, said Dr. Saini.
With the agreement of Governments of Haryana and Governemtn of Israel two projects in the name of Centre of Excellence for fruits and Centre of Excellence for vegetables were started at Sirsa and Karnal respectively. Entering into the field of Biotechnology especially production of micro tubers in potato and introduction of new varieties through tissue culture techniques.