Principal Secretary Navin Choudhary chairs SLEC meeting, clears horticulture projects

Jammu: Principal Secretary, Horticulture, Agriculture Production and Farmers’ Welfare Departments, Navin Kumar Choudhary chaired a State Level Executive Committee (SLEC) meeting at the Civil Secretariat here today. The meeting was called by Department of Horticulture regarding approval of projects under Mission for Integrated Development of Horticulture (MIDH).

The Principal Secretary thoroughly checked details, projects analyses, their estimated costs and information about the applicants. He also reviewed project viability and estimated costs about the projects.

In all, four projects of Controlled Atmosphere Storage and one food processing project was cleared by the SLEC.

During the course of the meeting, Principal Secretary highlighted that the SLEC meetings must be held regularly and all applications be approved at the minimum possible time. Each and every delay is practically a loss of opportunity cost as well as loss to economy, he said.

Navin Choudhary hailed that walnut processing and high density orchards have great untapped potential to give boost to our economy and generate a number of jobs. Establishing a robust food processing industry in J&K is the need of the hour, he added.

The meeting was attended by DG Planning, S Bilal Ahmad; Director Floriculture, KS Chib; Director Planning, Forests, Parvaiz Handoo; Director Horticulture (P&M), Ram Savak; Special Secretary (I&C), Tariq Ahmad Zargar, Additional Secretary Horticulture, Jahangir Hashmi; Joint Director (P), Subash Chander; Joint Director Agriculture Jammu, KK Sharma; Assistant Director Research, SKUAST Jammu, Pardeep Wali.

Director Horticulture Kashmir, Ajaz Ahmad Bhat and Director Agriculture Kashmir, Mohammad Iqbal Choudhary attended the meeting through video conferencing.