Chandigarh: Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today said that the central government’s announcement to setting up the Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA) at Ludhiana would give a much needed second push to the Green Revolution in the agriculture sector.
Thanking Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Agriculture minister Sharad Pawar for establishing the BISA, Badal said that traditional agriculture had already reached a point of saturation in the agrarian state of Punjab.
Badal, in a statement here, said: “The setting up of this prestigious institute would be a real tribute to the Noble laureate and father of the Green Revolution, Dr. Norman E. Borlaug, who was intimately associated with Punjab especially the Punjab Agricultural University (PAU). People of our state still remember him with respect and affection.”
BISA will be set up in Ludhiana, where the PAU is located, at a cost of over Rs.500 crore.
Punjab, which alone contributes over 50 percent of the total foodgrain to the national kitty, had led the country in bringing about the Green Revolution for greater food grain production in the 1950s and 1960s.
The central government has announced the setting up of BISA in Punjab with satellite centers in Bihar and Madhya Pradesh.
“This would contribute significantly in improving the agriculture in the country in general and food security in particular,” Badal said here.
Badal hoped that the institute would help in diversification of agriculture by encouraging the value added crops like maize and oilseeds and help farmers to come out of the rut of wheat-paddy cycle.
IANS
