Kissan mela opens with new stall on legal aid

Although the annual kissan mela looks the same every year, a few new additions were there for everyone to see when it opened at PAU on Friday.

This time, lawyers set up a legal aid services stall where Chief Judicial Magistrate A K Singla interacted with youngsters, and the traffic wing of the Punjab Police educated farmers about traffic rules.

While the university continued to concentrate on bigger and better tractors, combines and harvestors, its seed sale was the major attraction for farmers who began to queue up as early as two in the morning to buy that bag of seed — wheat during this time of the season.

Inaugurating the mela, Punjab Public Works Department Minister Sharanjit Singh Dhillon said the prime focus of his government was on making agriculture a profitable venture. He urged the farmers to go for diversification.

He congratulated the farmers on producing good paddy crop and said the decision to set up the Directorate of Maize Research in Ludhiana would benefit them.

PAU vice-chancellor Baldev Singh Dhillon said the huge rush of farmers in the mela was a testimony to their faith in the university. He urged the farmers to adopt on-farm water-saving technologies. While advising the farmers to make judicious use of agro-chemicals and not to indulge in stubble burning, he said it was vital to maintain soil health by using farm yard manure, compost and recommended bio-fertilisers.

In order to motivate youth to opt agriculture as a profession, the university was planning to introduce short-term vocational courses, the V-C added.

Associate Director of Research Dr P S Chahal said the PAU had evolved 707 varieties of different crops. Of these, 117 had been recommended at the national level. He asked the farmers to make use of resource conservation technologies like leaf colour chart for the need-based nitrogen fertiliser application in wheat, rice and maize.

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