23-04-2025
Revenue minister Jagat Singh Negi orders penalty on firms failing to complete solar fencing work
Shimla: Revenue and horticulture minister
Jagat Singh Negi
on Wednesday directed the officials concerned to impose a penalty, as per the contract, if the firms engaged in
solar fencing
and field preparation fail to complete the work on time.
Chairing a meeting of the governing council of the
HP Shiva Project
, Negi also asked Dr Yashwant Singh Parmar Horticulture and Forestry University, Nauni in Solan district, to provide high-quality plants of
plum and persimmon
(Japanese fruit) to the farmers.
He further directed the purchase of water-soluble nutrients and pesticides from branded companies through a tender process, besides the purchase of high-tech spray kits, pumps, and other equipment with the cooperation of the Horticultural Produce Marketing and Processing Corporation (HPMC).
The minister said the HP Shiva Project was being implemented in seven districts of the state with a total outlay of 163 million dollars (Rs 1,292 crore), and so far, Rs 190 crore had been spent under this project.
Under this project, solar fencing work is proposed on 4,000 hectares of land, and a target is set to complete the work on 2,750 hectares of land by June this year. So far, solar fencing work has been completed on 828 hectares of land.
Negi also said only 'true-to-type' plants should be given to the farmers, whose quality was being tested in the molecular lab at Neri in Hamirpur – the facility has also been approved by the Asian Development Bank.
He also mentioned that samples taken from the farmers' fields were being tested and the report was made available in seven or eight days.
The minister, meanwhile, was informed that Nauni University would provide 40,000 saplings each of plum and persimmon varieties by Feb next year and a total of one lakh plants by the year 2027.
As many as 66 agenda items were approved in the meeting. It was informed that an integrated digital platform was being developed under the HP Shiva Project, in which 75 types of artificial intelligence-based services like plant protection, disease management, soil testing, moisture level, weather information, tracing and tracking of production, capacity building, and marketing, etc., would be made available.
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