Cabinet nod for 5 seed parks in UP's agro-economic zones: Minister
UTTAR PRADESH is set to get five state-of-the-art seed parks – one each in five 'agro-economic zones' in the state. A proposal in this regard was approved by the state Cabinet on Thursday, State Agriculture Minister Surya Pratap Shahi said. It was also decided that these parks would be named after former Prime Minister Chaudhary Charan Singh as a tribute towards his contribution to agriculture and the first of these parks would come up in Lucknow, said Shahi.
He told mediapersons that the first such park would be built with an investment of Rs 266 crore over 130 acres in the Attari area of Lucknow. He informed that this would be equipped with several facilities for enhancing seed production as well as processing, storage, speed breeding and hybrid research. The minister said the initiative would revolutionise the seed sector in the state.
The seed parks would come in a phased manner, said Shahi. After Lucknow, one would be developed in western Uttar Pradesh, another in Terai region, one in the Central zone and one in Bundelkhand. The minister also informed that these parks would be built through public-private partnership, where land would be offered on lease for 30 years to the seed companies.
Shahi pointed out that Uttar Pradesh is one of the largest agriculture states, having 165 lakh hectares of cultivable land and if both the crops are calculated, farming takes place on nearly 270 lakh hectares.
'For this, we require 70 lakh quintals or seven lakh metric tonnes of seeds. Against this, the state is able to produce around 46 lakh quintal only and the remaining is taken from the neighbouring states. Thus, to promote seed production within the state and at the same time provide certification for quality seeds, approval has been given for developing seed parks in the state,' said Shahi.
Officials informed that Uttar Pradesh has nine agricultural climatic zones and seed parks would be developed in five of these regions, with the aim of reducing dependency on other states and also export seeds to other states.
Shahi pointed out that while Uttar Pradesh does not produce any hybrid seeds, of the nearly Rs 7,000 crore seed business, around Rs 3,500 crore business goes to other states. Thus, the idea is also to capitalise on this mark within the state.
In another significant decision, the Cabinet approved the proposal for construction of 'marriage and event halls' to be named 'Panchayat Utsav Bhawan' in each rural assembly constituency across the state. In the first phase, 71 of these halls would be constructed and officials informed that Rs 100 crore has been allocated for the project, as one Utsav Bhawan is expected to cost around Rs 1.41 crore of which 40 per cent would be contributed by the state government from UP Matri Bhoomi Yojana, while remaining 60 per cent would be through funding from the donors.
The Cabinet also approved revision of remuneration of contractual employees of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, including both technical and non-technical staff working right from pilot, co-pilot, aviation engineer, quality manager, additional director (technical) to operations manager and flight safety chief. As a result, now the pilot salary slab would increase from Rs 2.5–7 lakh to Rs 5–10 lakh, while the co-pilot slab from Rs 1.25–6 lakh to Rs 3-7 lakh slab.
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