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New varieties to bolster fruit production
Dehradun, December 20 The imported varieties of apple are not only rich in taste but are also virus and disease-resistant. “China is fast capturing the world market and in the coming years it would capture one-third of the apple market in the world. For China, India is the biggest market and if their apples were sold here, it would be a major setback to the apple growers here. The need of hour is to boost apple production here, which is possible through the new variety of the plant that bears fruit in three years,” said Dr. D.R. Gautam, director of the state horticulture and food processing department. He added that the first crop of the new variety of apples was started early this year in the state. He said benefits of the new varieties is that they bear fruit early, productivity is six to seven times more and the cost would be less than apples imported from other countries. “In this way we can even put a stop to import of apples,” he added. Procured from the USA by the horticulture directorate, some of the varieties include the Star King and Top Red grown at a height of 6,500 ft and Red Chief, Organ Spur, Scarlet Gala, Red Fuji and Vale Spur, suitable for cultivation at the elevation of 5,500-6,000 ft. The horticulture directorate had also managed to multiply the saplings to 40,000 plants on 10,000 acres of nursery at Chobatia. In addition, the state is taking a series of steps to exploit the weather and soil conditions of the region, which are favourable for largescale walnut farming. Dr. Gautam said if Jammu and Kashmir can earn annual revenue of Rs 200 crore by growing walnut, Uttarakhand could also make it a prime cash fruit of state. “Even though walnuts are being grown across 10,000 hectares in the state, it is not being done in a systematic manner. The emphasis is now being laid on developing walnut orchards across the hill tracts of Garhwal and Kumaon, where earlier only government orchards were in existence,” he said. As part of the initiative to promote walnut cultivation in the state, the government procured 4,500 plants of the choicest variety of walnuts from France last year. “This is the variety in which walnuts grow in the form of a bunch and the tree is also not very tall,” said Dr Gautam, adding that these plants, which cost between 10 euros to 12 euros per plant, were kept in Ranikhet for quarantine treatment for making them disease-free. Around 500 of these saplings have now been planted in Soni gardens of Almora, another 500 have been planted in Chaubatia gardens in Ranikhet. The rest are being taken care of in the government poly homes in Ranikhet. “These plants will now be distributed across the state in the districts of Uttarkashi, Tehri, Pauri and Pithoragarh,” he said, adding that these plants will be ready to bear fruit in two years and each tree has the potential to produce at least 50 kg of walnut per annum. With these walnuts having a potential to fetch a market price of Rs 100 per kilogram, they are set to be prime revenue earners. “Walnut growing is also being promoted through grafting. We have also developed a technique whereby a 15-year-old plant can be replaced by a fresh one,” said Dr. Gautam. Meanwhile, in another initiative to promote horticulture in Uttarakhand, a horticulture technology mission has been initiated with the help of the Central government. Under the scheme, the government would provide horticulture production inputs at a subsidised rate. They would also financially assist the farmers in building horticultural setups like poly houses and water-harvesting tanks. The other thrust areas of the project are maximum use of cultivated area along with procurement and use of pesticides and promoting superior
quality saplings. “After the project is completed, the bank concerned, the National Horticulture Board along with the team of the cultivator will inspect the work. The Board would then grant 20 per cent subsidy. Thereafter the state government’s work begins. After inspecting the work, we provide 20 per cent matching grant to the cultivator. In this way a cultivator gets 40 per cent redemption in the total cost,” said officials of the horticulture and food processing department. Even the transportation facilities have been spruced up. Earlier, fruits were loaded on mules and sent to the market, which resulted in lot of wastage, but now the state government has identified 70 points and work to set up gravity- based material handling ropeway is under progress here. This would help in decreasing the losses of
the cultivators.
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Avian flu puts Assan on alert mode
Dehradun, December 20 The Assam flu outbreak is particularly being linked to the bar headed goose that is the carrier of the H5N1 virus. As many as six bar headed geese have arrived in Assan in Dehradun along with other migratory birds thus putting the forest authorities on alert mode. Significantly, these geese were also the prime carriers of the dreaded virus in China in 2005. Assan Conservation Reserve, the only conservation reserve in the country dedicated to migratory birds, attracts a large number of birds from Central Asia, which prominently includes Rudy Shelducks. Fortunately, no case of bird flu has been detected till date in Assan but the forest department in recent years has been keeping a close tab on these winged guests. B.P. Gupta, conservator of forests, Yamuna Circle, denied any flu scare at Assan. He, however, added that forest officials were monitoring the movement of visiting birds. Veterinary officials have also been put on alert mode to meet out exigencies in eventuality of outbreak of flu. It has been generally that found that the virus-affected migratory birds transmit the virus to ducks who subsequently spread it on to the other poultry. The virus then gets transmitted to territorial animals from birds and ultimately to humans. Meanwhile, forest officials have also conducted a meeting with the district officials in this regard. Monitoring of migratory birds in water bodies in Haridwar and Kumaon where migratory birds arrive in big numbers is also being undertaken. The neighbouring state of Haryana has also put itself on high alert in both its Sultanpur and Bhjindawas bird sanctuaries.
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20 more ambulances hit the road
Dehradun, December 20 Calling upon team members of the EMRI to continuously set new goals, Khanduri said that they have managed to deliver results in the shortest possible time span. “The people have now started demanding ambulances along with roads. It is becoming a necessity. From now on, the task before you is bound to become more difficult as people’s expectations rise,” he added. Health minister Dr Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ said that the state government is committed to providing medical facilities at the doorstep of the people. He said that the emergency services started on a public-private partnership mode between the State Health Department and EMRI (of Satyam Computers) would soon run in all 95 development blocks of the state. He referred to the members of EMRI as modern day “Hanumans” who are risking their lives in order to reach people in distress. Chief executive officer (CEO) of EMRI, Anup Nautiyal, stressed that the ambulance services were proving to be a boon to the village women as there has been a steady increase in the number of institutional deliveries. Around 28 per cent of the calls made to the service call centres pertain to pregnancy cases. “Till date, we have received 40,000 calls and 80 per cent of our calls were answered at the first ring,” Nautiyal said. Later, a convoy of 10 ambulances with police vans and a fire brigade moved through the city to generate awareness about the emergency services.
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Homage paid to Barrister John Lang
Mussoorie, December 20 The press club of Mussoorie had been organising various events over the past week as a mark of respect for Lang who apart from being an barrister was also a noted journalist and a prolific writer. Among those present on the occasion included Ajay Ramola, Sunil Silwal, Vijendra Panwar, Surendra Pundir and Prem Singh.
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Soon, check property status online
Dehradun, December 20 “The project is likely to be implemented in the district by January next,” informed AK Pandey, DIG (headquaters), department of stamp and registration, Uttarakhand. The project aims at automation of the manual process of property registration in the sub-registrar offices at Kashipur, Kichha, Bazpur and Sitarganj. Wipro is the consulting firm for the project under the scheme, Replication of eGovernance in Property Registration in Uttarakhand, initiated by the central department of information technology. As of now, all property registration processes are done manually in the district that generates the third highest revenue in the state on account of stamp duty and registration fee. Facing acute staff shortage, the registration process in all four sub-registrar offices in the district are expected to become more efficient in terms of removing problems related to preservation of documents in manual volumes, lack of transparency in market valuation, delays in index search facilities, and lack of connectivity with other departments. The state government has already given clearance for the proposed improvements which include availability of circle rates on the website and access to the exact location of land in that circle. There will be a help counter. One will be required to present all deed documents of the proposed property at the counter. The person will be given a system-generated enquiry slip with the desired transaction details like temporary reference number, number of executants, market value assessed and stamp and registration duty payable for respective transaction. The person will be issued a token after submitting the documents. The clerk concerned will initiate data entry, scrutiny and valuation check followed by calculation of the registration fee and additional stamp duty. The whole document will be scanned and archived, post-verification by the registration clerk. A permanent number will be allocated to the deed. Once the process is complete, details of the registration will be uploaded on the website through which anybody can access details of land, its owner and authenticity of registration.
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With China expected to capture one-third of the apple market in the world in the coming years, the Uttarakhand horticulture department is all set to meet the challenge by boosting its apple production with American hybrid varieties and new techniques.
“What is special about new varieties of apple, including that of early Redone, Super Chief Spur, Empire etc is that they bear fruit after two to three years. Earlier, it used to take seven to ten years for the big trees to bear fruit,” he said. 