Speculation is again rife among farmers that the threat of closure or shifting the Research Centre and the International Coconut Gene Bank for South Asia of the Central Plantation Crops Research Institute (CPCRI) at Kidu near Kukke Subrahmanya is not far from over.
The fresh apprehensions among farmers are due to the recent recommendations of a Union government committee whose mandate also covered the review of the scientific cadre at the CPCRI headquarterd in Kasaragod, Kerala.
The Union Ministry for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare and the president of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) constituted a committee on March 16, 2017 to review the scientific cadre of institutes under the ICAR for restructuring and strengthening them. It has held five meetings on the issue with the latest being held on October 29, 2018 in Delhi.
A copy of the recommendations of the committee (November 13, 2018) made available to The Hindu mentions six recommendations relating to the CPCRI. Two among them state that “...(iii) There may be five regional stations, one regional station each in Kerala and Karnataka will be closed. (iv) The new proposed regional station may be adequately strengthened.”
Sources said that there are moves in the bureaucracy to shift the research centre at Kidu to Samalkot, East Godavari, Andhra Pradesh, to start it as a new regional station.
It is because about 55 acres of land is available there. Adding to it, the CPCRI has so far not paid ₹ 19.26 crore to the Karnataka Forest Department as net present value for getting the lease period of the research centre at Kidu renewed.
The research centre and the gene bank spread over 120 hectares is on the Forest Department’s land leased out to the CPCRI. The 30-year lease expired in 2000. The research centre was established in 1972 and the gene bank in 1998.
However, allaying fears, CPCRI Director P. Chowdappa said that the Ministry is of the opinion that ICAR research institutes should not have more than one regional station in a State.
In the particular case, CPCRI has only one regional station in Karnataka at Vitla. The one at Kidu is not a regional station but a research centre. Hence, there is no reason to close it down or shift it. Neither will the Vitla station be closed down.
It is not easy to wind up the Kidu centre as it has irreplaceable genetic resources and elite parental lines of coconut, arecanut and cocoa, including the world’s largest collection of coconut genetic resources, he said.
