Ludhiana, December 9 The Union Minister for Animal Husbandry, Dairying and Fisheries, Giriraj Singh, visited Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) and interacted with Vice-Chancellor Baldev Singh Dhillon and other senior officials of the university. The Union Minister was apprised of various research programmes undertaken by the university. Giriraj also suggested ways to increase income of farmers. He called upon the university to come up with a model comprising horticulture, animal husbandry and poultry farming to double the income of farmers. The Union Minister also deliberated on drip irrigation technology, water awareness campaign, novel ways to manage paddy straw and crop diversification. Dhillon assured the minister of developing the model suggested by him. “The university is making consistent efforts to develop early maturing, less water requiring rice varieties and technologies to manage paddy straw,” he said. Highlighting the research programmes of the university, Navtej Singh Bains, director of research, said: “Keeping in view the issues of depletion of underground water, changing climate and crop diversification, the university has been instrumental in developing less water requiring rice varieties, checking stubble burning with the development of farm machinery and strengthening programmes on maize as an alternate crop.” Giriraj Singh was also honoured with a shawl, memento and presented a work of art made up of straw. —TNS

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