Saturday, June 7, 2003 |
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HIMACHAL Pradesh is basically an agrarian state which has made a quantum leap in horticulture and vegetable production. However, the yield per unit area is much below international standards. Application of biotechnology to evolve high-yielding crops and varieties and produce transgenic crops will go a long way in promotion of diversification of farming in the state. P.K. Khosla, Adviser, Biotechnology, Himachal Pradesh, is busy giving the biotech projects a three-pronged push: strengthening the R & D in the universities and research institutes, linking biotechnology to the rural sector for harnessing entrepreneurship and employment generation and last, but not the least, attracting mega biotechnology-based industries in Himachal Pradesh. "My ultimate dream
is to make Himachal Pradesh economically and ecologically sound,
prosperous and a model state of the country. For this purpose,
harnessing its biodiversity by diversification into medicinal and
aromatic plants and locally installed processing units for value-added
finished goods is a must. |
Khosla was born in Samrala in Ludhiana district of Punjab. He had his early education in Ludhiana and did his graduation from Government College, Ludhiana, and his post-doctorate from Oxford University, UK. He served in prestigious universities and was with the Dr Y.S. Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry for 24 years. Khosla, immediately after joining the Forest Faculty at Solan (Nauni) University, was shortlisted and picked up by the then Chief Minister of HP, late Y.S Parmar, in 1976 to accompany him as a team member on a world tour to study multipurpose trees for forest farming and mist propagation technology for mass production of planting material. Another distinction,
acknowledged by Panjab University in 1968, was that during his Ph.D in
Botany, he was exempted from viva voce of the thesis by J.W Wright of
Michigan University and F. Mergen of Yale University, USA, considering
the in-depth analysis undertaken in the thesis. He was responsible for
launching an era of research and development in agro-forestry, social
forestry and tree improvement in the university system in India. It
resulted in the HP Solan (Nauni) Campus of then HP University, Shimla,
becoming the first university of its kind in India to start M.Sc
Forestry in 1976.
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