Organic farming

UP government to mark 15,000 acres for organic farming

Virendra Singh Rawat
Lucknow / June 17, 2020

To promote organic farming, the Uttar Pradesh government will identify nearly 15,000 acres of land across the state.

Under the proposal, the state will mark 200 acres in each of the 75 districts for organic farming after preparing a holistic roadmap for the purpose.

Presiding over a meeting here today, UP chief secretary R K Tiwari issued necessary instructions to officials. He also underlined that high quality plant varieties be prepared in the state tissue culture labs.

Meanwhile, he stressed on the imperatives of developing central warehousing facilities instead of constructing separate warehouses for different state departments for better cost, space and logistics management.

Meanwhile, the meeting also cleared proposals of 75 projects totalling Rs 871 crore, pertaining to agriculture, sugarcane, horticulture, silk, animal husbandry, fisheries, state agricultural and research institutions.

Mango

Yogi wants global marketing push for UP mango brands

Virendra Singh Rawat
Lucknow / June 16, 2020

Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath has laid stress on mounting an international level marketing push to popularise the mango varieties grown in the state.

Observing that UP had an enviable basket of mango brands, yet there was a need to promote them with superior marketing and publicity tools in the national and international markets.

UP is among the top mango producing state in India with annual production estimated at more than 4 million tonnes (MT). The prominent mango varieties grown in UP comprise dussehri, langda, chausa, ramkela, rataul, safeda, gaurjit, amrapali, mallika etc.

Presiding over a review meeting on mango here recently, Yogi directed officials to take suggestions from mango farmers and exporters for fine tuning the existing policy framework to promote the crop. He asked officials to ensure adequate provision for cold room, pack house etc, apart from rejuvenating mango orchards for high quality yield.

Meanwhile, he asked for leveraging the Rs 20 trillion economic stimulus package announced by the Centre to boost the agricultural and horticultural sectors in the state.

The CM talked about promoting organic farming and the high demand for such crops in the market, both domestic and abroad.

Last month, Mango Growers Association of India had written to the UP government demanding a slew of measures to insulate the mango farmers from losses in the backdrop of the covid-19 lockdown.

India is among the top mango producers, corresponding to 40 per cent of global output followed by China, Thailand and Pakistan. Mango is widely exported to the Gulf and South East Asian countries from India.

EOM

Covid-19 infra

UP to boost covid-19 health infra in NCR districts

Virendra Singh Rawat

Lucknow / June 15, 2020

To mitigate the spread of covid-19 pandemic in the National Capital Region (NCR), Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath today instructed officials to strengthen the health infra in the NCR districts.

These districts comprise Gautam Buddh Nagar (Noida), Ghaziabad, Meerut, Baghpat etc. The level 1, 2 and 3 covid hospitals in these districts will be further spruced up and prepared to deal with potential influx of positive cases due to the cross-border movement of people, UP additional chief secretary Awanish Kumar Awasthi said in Lucknow this evening.

Meanwhile, the CM underlined that just like lockdown, unlock 1.0 was also conditional subject to the espousal of the standard social distancing and safety protocols by the people, including wearing masks, refraining from public spitting, maintaining distance, avoiding crowding, observing night curfew etc.

He has directed the respective district magistrates and police chiefs to enforce the social distancing norms strictly and slap fine on those not wearing masks in the public spaces.

Meanwhile, the number of coronavirus active cases in UP stood at 5,064, while 8,610 patients had been discharged after treatment, thus raising the recovery rate to over 61%. So far, 417 covid-19 patients have died in the state.

To engage the migrant workers, the state has provided jobs to more than 5.7 million people, including migrants and other workers under the flagship Mahatma Gandhi  National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA).

The CM has directed officials to engage a million more workers soon, while reiterating the target of creating more than 10 million jobs under different schemes and projects in the state in the coming weeks.

Nearly 3.5 million migrant workers have returned to UP from other states viz Gujarat, Maharashtra, Punjab and Delhi, by Shramik Special trains and roadways buses.

Now, the state is sending back migrant workers of Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha and Chhattisgarh employed in the UP-based brick kilns to their native states by trains.

UP paddy procurement touches 2 million tonnes mark

Paddy procurement in the rice bowl of Uttar Pradesh has touched the 2 million tonnes (MT) mark.

In current kharif marketing season, the Yogi Adityanath government is targetting 5 MT in direct paddy procurement. Last season, about 70 percent or 3.5 MT of paddy could only be procured of the targetted 5 MT.

Thus far, total operational 3,375 procurement centres of the state procurement agencies and FCI had procured 2.15 MT of paddy and the state farmers paid nearly Rs 3,335 crore. The prevailing paddy minimum support price (MSP) stands at Rs 1,550 per quintal (100 kg).

UP food and civil supplies chief marketing officer (CMO) A K Singh said the brisk pace of paddy procurement had ensured the high level of purchase in the state, which currently stands at about four times vis-à-vis the corresponding period last year. This season, the paddy output is estimated at 21.812 MT in UP.

The state is not only one of the largest paddy producers in India, but a mammoth consumer of rice under the public distribution system (PDS). It needs about 4 MT of custom milled rice for PDS annually. If paddy procurement targets are fully achieved this year, UP farmers would pocket Rs 7,750 crore from direct sale of the crop to the government agencies.

Paddy, wheat and sugarcane are the three principal agricultural cash crops in UP.

EOM

Finland wants to tango with UP

Finland has evinced interest in partnering the Uttar Pradesh government in various sectors, including the smart city project, power, renewable energy, smart grid solutions etc.

Taking this agenda forward, Finland minister for environment, energy and housing Kimmo Tiilikainen today called upon UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath here this evening and held wide ranging discussions, while offering Finnish expertise in hordes of sectors.

Earlier in the day, industry chamber FICCI and Embassy of Finland had jointly organised an industry interaction in Lucknow. It witnessed the participation of 21 Finnish companies offering innovative and sustainable solution in the energy, smart grid, smart cities sectors, apart from some funding agencies.

The session also saw the participation of 30 Indian companies, who later partook in B2B sessions with their Finnish counterparts.

“We are here to offer our technological expertise in a wide range of sectors, including smart cities, smart grid, renewable energy, power etc. I am also looking forward to hearing the chief minister about his vision of development and to see where Finnish companies could contribute,” Tiilikainen said on the sidelines.

UP industry minister Satish Mahana and power minister Srikant Sharma represented the state government at the summit.

Tiilikainen said Finland was desirous of expanding the scope of partnership with UP in different sectors. Finnish technology could be used for energy conservation projects, while it could be employed in better traffic management, he added.

Mahana observed UP had transformed over the last six months even as he exhorted FICCI to serve as a bridge between Finland and India. He claimed now investors were showing interest in setting up their industries in the state.

Sharma said the state government had undertaken various new projects, including providing electricity connection to every household. He noted the partnership between Finland and UP would help the state develop in different sectors.

Over the past few months, the representatives of various governments, including Israel, Japan, France, Belgium and now Finland, have met Yogi and offered their expertise in the on-going state projects.

EOM

Lucknow Metro facing ‘overhead’ Chinese threat

Lucknow Metro, the country’s latest metro rail plying passenger coaches and signalling system supplied by French major Alstom, is faced with a peculiar threat of Chinese origin these days.

The Metro, which rolled out its commercial services last week over 8.5 km long elevated section, is today vulnerable to its electrical systems tripping after coming in contact with Chinese ‘manjha’ (kite string), which among other harmful chemicals contains metallic substances.

The electric supply to Lucknow Metro has tripped multiple times due to Chinese manjha getting entangled with its overhead supply cables. After a recent such incident, LMRC has filed a police complaint in this regard.

After the last Metro service every night, LMRC engineers undertake an arduous task of checking overhead cables and extricating such manjha for the smooth run of the metro the following day.

While, Chinese manjha stands banned in Lucknow, it nonetheless continues to sell illegally in the kite markets.

Earlier, LMRC had also appealed to the Lucknow residents to desist from flying kite near the metro elevated route as it engenders the safety of metro passengers, while also posing threat to the smooth running of the metro services.

The heritage city of Lucknow is famous for kite flying, especially in old residential areas and the sprouting of high rises has quite not dampened the spirits of its aficionados.

Kite flying reaches crescendo during the annual kite flying and competition carnival on ‘jamghat’, which falls on the following day of Diwali festival, the skyline becomes colourful with kites of varied shapes and sizes flying across.

On September 5, union home minister Rajnath Singh and Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Aditynath had jointly flagged off the maiden commercial run of Lucknow Metro, which is touted among the fastest completing metro projects in India. Its priority section of 8.5 km reached the commercial operations stage within three years of the start of ground work.

EOM

Chinese to set up footwear park in UP

An autonomous Chinese municipality, Wenzhou is keen to setting up a leather and footwear components park in Uttar Pradesh.

Located near East China Sea, Wenzhou is a port and industrial city in China's Zhejiang province and is reckoned for its industrial clusters and parks.

Wenzhou wants to establish a footwear components park in UP, although the exact location is still not final, Council for Leather Exports (CLE) regional chairman Javed Iqbal said adding the park could come up in Lucknow, Unnao or Hardoi.

Wenzhou officials have invited the UP chief secretary to participate in the ‘China-India (Wenzhou) Dialogue on Leather Industry Capacity Cooperation’ to explore business ties. Besides, two footwear and leather industrialists, including Iqbal, have been invited at the conference, scheduled on June 19 in Wenzhou.

In backdrop of squeeze on supply of raw hide in UP due to closure of unregistered slaughter houses, the proposed park could help the leather goods manufacturers in Kanpur and other districts, Iqbal said.

Wenzhou is among China's most progressive municipalities, which are seeking global business ties two-way investments. India is Wenzhou's 5th largest export market for textiles, apparels, leather goods etc.

Earlier on April 24, Lucknow Municipal Corporation (LMC) had also signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Wenzhou for furthering Sino-Indian economic, cultural ties, tourism and educational ties.