Core team of Tata Sons, which is on a three-day visit to Kashmir for their possible engagements in public and private partnership efforts in various sectors of the state, on Wednesday held interactions with horticulture players and conducted field visits.
The team comprising of Girish Krishnamurthy, Vice President& Head- Strategic Initiatives, Chairman’s Office, Tata Group; VenguswamyRamaswamy, Senior Vice President & Global Head-TCS iON; ShankarRanganathan, Principal TSMG visited various public sector institutions andprivate orchard areas in order to have first-hand feel of the horticulturesector in Kashmir.
The visiting team was accompanied by Director HorticultureKashmir Ajaz Ahmad Bhat, Director Agriculture Kashmir Ajaz AltafAndrabi andManaging Director Shafat Sultan andother officers of Horticulture Department, entrepreneurs and otherstakeholders.
While interacting with the team, DirectorHorticulture-Kashmir and Managing Director-JKHPMC gave full resume ofhorticulture sector in the valley, its importance and the possible areas ofconcern for engagements.
Director Horticulture Kashmir informed the group thatHorticulture is the key sector of economy of the state with a turnover of Rs8000 crores and engages as many as 7 lakh families involving a population of35-40 lakh people. Director Horticulture Kashmir also identified certain areaswhich form the course of concern and require immediate attention for overallinterests of the growers and highlighted the importance of expansion of moreand more area under Ultra High Density plantation especially Apple in relationto better packaging practices for scientific promotion of horticulture sectorfor earning better returns.
Director Horticulture Kashmir stressed upon investments inpost-harvest management viz. establishment of CA stores, improving valueaddition of fruit crops and use of reefer vans in order to ensure that betterreturns results out of the produce. Other sectors requiring attention asidentified by Director Horticulture Kashmir and put before the team includedprocessing units and use of bio fertilizers/pesticides to ward off the harmfuleffects of fertilizers/pesticides on the ultimate produce in line with ensuringgood hygiene of the produce.
At the end Director Horticulture Kashmir assured the coregroup of full cooperation at every stage of engagements in Horticulture sectorfor upgrading this key sector of economy. Later the group visited IGC,Lassipora, Pulwama and interacted with prospective entrepreneurs & otherstakeholders.