Special Correspondent
Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy inaugurates Nursery-Mela 2007
HYDERABAD: Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy on Saturday threw open the five-day ‘Nursery Mela 2007’ at People’s Plaza on Necklace Road, where 79 new varieties of exotic flowering plants brought from Bangalore and Pune were on display.
After cutting the ribbon, Dr. Reddy went around most of the stalls and made special mention to officials on the way. Horticulture experts were on hand to provide technical inputs on growing sweet oranges and mangoes.
The Mela has over 100 stalls set up by the Horticulture Departments from AP, Goa, Karnataka and Maharashtra, apart from over 50 nurseries dealing with choicest of plant, flower and fruit varieties.
Speaking to presspersons later, Commissioner, Horticulture K. Madhusudana Rao, expressed satisfaction at the enhanced levels of awareness among farmers, so much so, that those in drought-prone districts like Anantapur, Mahbubnagar and Nalgonda were going in for sweet orange orchards by using micro-irrigation systems.
With increasing motivational levels in farmers, an estimated 16.6 lakh hectares was under horticulture crops, a clear increase of over 40 per cent in the past three years, he said. State Government had allocated Rs. 150 crore for use in 18 districts covered under the State Horticultural Mission. Rs. 50 crore more was earmarked in the horticulture budget for the remaining districts, taking the total horticulture spend to slightly over Rs. 200 crore, he said.
B. Udayalakshmi, Additional Commissioner, Horticulture, said entry was free on all the days. Farmers could also avail technical assistance from experts, she said.