Principal Secretary APD visits several areas of Budgam district

Budgam, Sep 6: Principal Secretary Agriculture Production Department (APD), Shailendra Kumar Wednesday visited organic vegetable cluster Narkara here, held interaction with the progressive farmers and also took stock of the agriculture activities in the areas.
During the visit, he also reviewed the progress on various projects under holistic agriculture development programme.
Interacting with the farmers, Principal Secretary reiterated department’s commitment to the development of agriculture and allied sectors in the region. He impressed upon the young educated farmers to go for diverse agriculture activities like mushroom cultivation, bee keeping as a main source to earn income and livelihood. He further said that organic vegetable cultivation shall be encouraged and a large number of organic vegetable clusters shall be established under PKVY scheme in the UT of J&K.
On the occasion, Shailendra Kumar also distributed authority letters among beneficiaries under CAPEX budget 2023-24 for the establishment of mushroom units on 50% subsidy.
Meanwhile, the Principal Secretary also visited first of its kind fully automated mushroom unit at Mamath here. He inspected different sections of mushroom unit and held deliberations with the unit holder.
Expressing his view, Shailendra Kumar said that a multi crore project under holistic agriculture development programme is being implemented by the department of agriculture for the promotion of round the year mushroom cultivation for sustainable and profitable crop. He said over the years mushroom cultivation emerged as one of the important tools to enhance agriculture income of the concerned farming families.
Later, the Principal Secretary also visited vegetable growing areas of Bugam and held and interaction with the vegetable growers of the area.
Director Agriculture Kashmir, Chowdhary Mohammad Iqbal and other senior officers of the Agriculture department accompanied the Principal Secretary during the visit.