By OUR STAFF REPORTER
DEHRADUN, 19 Nov: Under the Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative Limited (IFFCO), New Delhi, funded project, ‘Genetic improvement of Azadirachta indica for developing high oil and azadirachtin yielding varieties’, a monitoring and coordination meeting was organised at the Forest Research Institute, here, today. Dr US Awasthi, Managing Director, IFFCO, along with RP Singh, Director (HR), Yogendra Kumar, Director (Marketing) and Pramod Kumar Singh, Director, IFFCO, participated in the meeting and interacted with AS Rawat, Director, Forest Research Institute and its team of scientists. During the meeting, MD (IFFCO) stressed upon developing Neem varieties that have favourable characteristics and are proposed for large scale deployment. The Director, FRI, and Scientists involved with the project under the leadership of Dr Ashok Kumar assured that such proposals for release of varieties that have high seed yield and oil content with short gestation period would be indentified and a proposal accordingly would be sent to the Member Secretary of Variety Releasing Committee by July 2020. During the meeting, Dr Rama Kant, Dr Ajay Thakur and Dr YC Tripathi also made their useful interventions and promised to work jointly on releasing the varieties within the stipulated time. The State Marketing Manager, IFFCO-Dehradun, Dr DHS Bist, along with A Rahman, Neeraj Kumar and Prashant Kumar were also present.