Garhwal Post Bureau
PANTNAGAR, 4 Oct: The state government has entrusted the responsibility of preparing the agricultural roadmap for Uttarakhand to Govind Ballabh Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar. The work is being led by the university’s Vice Chancellor Dr Shivendra Kumar Kashyap. A meeting in this regard, held on 3 and 4 October, was attended by Agriculture Secretary Dr S.N. Pandey, Director General, Agriculture and Horticulture, Uttarakhand, Anand Srivastava, Director, Agriculture, Dinesh Kumar, Director, Horticulture, Dr A.K. Singh and senior officials from the Agriculture Department, including additional directors. Coordinators of various thematic groups for the roadmap, including faculty members from Pantnagar University, ICAR-Vivekananda Parvatiya Krishi Anusandhan Sansthan, Almora, and the University of Horticulture and Forestry, Bharsar, also participated. More than 50 officials and over 100 faculty members from across the state participated in the meeting.
This meeting marked an important milestone in the development of the roadmap. Priorities, data requirements, and the methodology of each group were discussed in detail. Based on this, the committees, coordinators, and their teams will submit the first draft of the roadmap by the end of October. This roadmap will serve as a guiding document for all stakeholders, including government departments, farmers, and educational institutions in the state, and will help make Uttarakhand a leading state in agriculture in the coming two decades.
Vice Chancellor Prof. Kashyap stated that Pantnagar University is leading the initiative to develop a forward-looking roadmap for Uttarakhand, incorporating emerging areas such as digitalization and the challenges of climate change. He explained that the roadmap covers a total of 25 categories, including cereals, pulses, oilseeds, medicinal and aromatic plants, flowers, fruits, vegetables, sugarcane, fisheries, wildlife, forestry, and organic and natural farming. Experts from India and abroad are contributing to this, and this roadmap will emerge as a model for the entire country.
