Construction work on BISA Ludhiana centre to start soon

The construction work for setting up of the prestigious Borlaug Institute for South Asia at Ludhiana will start soon, Director General of the institute H S Gupta said.
Gupta, during a meeting, apprised Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal about the progress of the prestigious BISA Centre named after the renowned international agriculture scientist Norman Borlaug.
Gupta was accompanied by Etienne Duveiller, International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre CIMMYT's regional representative Director of Research for South Asia.
The master plan for BISA's Ludhiana has been finalised and the construction work will start soon, Gupta said here last evening.
Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT) had signed an MoU to set up Borlaug Institute for South Asia at Ludhiana in Punjab in 2011.

The institute will create state of the art research facilities to support the maize and wheat R&D and broaden the range of varieties and tools available to farmers.

The Director General said a 7-member coordination committee has been established for the smooth functioning of the institute.
He said they had also chalked out a long-range implication programme for the state and presently initiated the research work at various levels with the help of PAU Ludhiana to develop new verity crops of better yield with less consumption of water besides preserving soil health by enhancing the Nitrogen contents in it.
The Executive Committee of BISA would also visit Punjab on August 30, added Gupta.

Badal hoped the institute would prove to be a milestone to herald the second green revolution by encouraging the value added crops like maize, basmati and oilseeds to help farmers to come out of wheat-paddy cycle.