PAU submits strategic research plan to ICAR

Ludhiana, Apr 9 (UNI) The Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) has submitted a strategic research plan to the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) giving expenditure details of the Rs 100 crore special grant given to it by the Union Government.

The grant was announced by the Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram during the Budget speech on February 28 this year.

PAU Vice Chancellor (VC) K S Aulakh held discussions with scientists within and outside PAU, in the last couple of days, to draw-up a strategy on its expenditure. The strategy involves setting up six centres of excellence and stresses on three key areas of research, according to a release issued by the PAU yesterday.

The proposed six centres are crop biotechnology and improvement, farm animal biotechnology, food processing and value addition, natural resources management, bio energy and farm power and machinery, the release said.

The important areas of research include strengthening integrated pest management, multi-location testing and regional specific research and Intellectual property rights, marketing intelligence cell and technology impact analysis, it added.

The VC has sent a summary of the schemes to be undertaken with this grant to the Union Finance Minister and Deputy Chairman Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia.

The PAU has proposed to set up a 'corpus fund' of about Rs 78.70 crore from which an interest of Rs 6.29 crore is likely to accrue annually. The remaining sum of Rs 21.29 crore will be used during the current financial year towards new equipment and for developing cutting-edge technologies and meeting working contingencies.

Earlier, Dr Aulakh had discussions with Dr Ahluwalia during latter's visit to Patiala and had apprised him of the acute financial crunch being faced by the University from the last four years or so.

The PAU is keen to upgrade laboratories to handle bio technologies, food processing and farm power and machinery. Efforts have been made to strike a balance by making provision for new equipment, power hotline, import of germplasm and contingencies to cover maintenance and operational costs of labs and to provide working funds to the scientists in the current financial year.

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