PAU YEAR ENDER: 2018- YET ANOTHER YEAR OF HARD WORK AND GLORY
Author(s): City Air NewsLudhiana: The year 2018 was an action packed year with the University placed among the ‘Institutes of Excellence’, shortlisted by the UGC and laurels won by faculty and students at various levels. The launch of...
Ludhiana: The year 2018 was an action packed year with the University placed among the ‘Institutes of Excellence’, shortlisted by the UGC and laurels won by faculty and students at various levels. The launch of the PAU ‘Kisan app’ and digital newspaper, Kheti Sandesh reaching more than 4 lakh farmers in the state have been major achievements of the year. The inauguration of Dr Manmohan Singh Auditorium with a seating capacity of 1000, inaugurated by Prof Ramesh Chand, Member, Niti Aayog and the opening of the new Gate No.1 have been major milestones of the year. Construction of a similar Gate No.2 is underway.
Awards and Achievements
The University was selected among the ‘Institutes of Excellence’ by the UGC.
Decorated with the prestigious Sardar Patel Outstanding ICAR Institution Award, 2017.
The University was conferred with the ‘Center of Excellence’ award for outstanding performance in breeder seed production.
PAU was awarded with the ‘Best Center Award’ by ICAR, for onion and garlic research.
Pau Vice Chancellor decorated with ‘Maize Champion of Asia Award’.
Crop varieties/hybrids released/recommended
Punjab Agricultural University has developed, released/ recommended several new varieties of crops, fruits and vegetables for general cultivation in Punjab. These include paddy variety PR127, for Arhar the recommended variety is AL 882, for moong SML 668 and for groundnut TG 37A. The University also launched wheat variety PBW-343 Unnat. It is zinc fortified variety of wheat.
Among fruits, for guava, Punjab Safeda and Punjab Kiran and for Sweet Orange the variety recommended is Early Gold.
Among vegetables, PAU developed eight new varieties namely, Punjab Kheera 1 of cucumber, Punjab Swarna of tomato, Punjab Tinda 1 of tinda, PAU Magaz Kaddu 1 of halwa kaddu, Punjab Needhi and Punjab Raunaq of brinjal, Kufri Ganga of potato, PAU SM3 of capsicum, PAU BG-4 of bittergourd, OL12 for oats and Punjab Mohini and Punjab Shingar of chrysanthemum.
Patent
PAU has been granted a patent on preparation of concentrated sugar cane vinegar by the Indian Patent Office, Government of India, New Delhi.
Kisan Melas
The outstanding farmer scientist interface built by the University is evident at the huge rush of farmers who throng the Rabi (September) and Kharif (March) Kisan Melas hosted by the University at the campus for two days and for one day each at the 6 KVKs namely, Amritsar, Gurdaspur, Ballowal Saunkhri, Patiala, Faridkot and Bathinda across the state. This year the September Kisan Mela was hosted for three days at the campus and saw intensive campaigning for stubble management, besides being hosted as a one day event at all KVKs.
Whitefly, yellow rust and straw management
Whitefly in cotton was managed successfully with the collective efforts of PAU scientists and State Department of Agriculture.
Intensive surveillance and monitoring of yellow rust in wheat, and timely advisory to farmers regarding its management resulted in bumper crop.
Intensive campaigns on paddy straw management by PAU in association with CII, Confederation of Indian Industries resulted in declaring 22 villages of the state as zero burning villages. PAU also strengthened its extension services through six extension vans bough in association with CII to facilitate surveillance of fields in villages across the state and carry out door to door farmer assistance campaigns.
Eminent visitors
Shri Hamid Karzai, former president of Afghanistan, visited PAU as Guest of Honour at the Kisan Mela held in September.
Shri V.P. Singh Badnore, Hon’ble Governor of Punjab, visited PAU as the Chief Guest at the Ludhiana Kisan Mela in March, 2018 and thereafter graced all the seven September 2018 Kisan Melas as the Chief Guest.
Dr T Ramasamy, Former Secretary, Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, visited PAU as Chief Guest at the annual convocation of the University.
The Chairman of Punjab State Farmers’ Commission, Mr Ajay Vir Jakhar visited PAU to discuss the agricultural policy at state level.
Shri Sunder Sham Arora, Minister for Industries and Commerce inaugurated the Agri and Food Conclave at PAU.
The Australian High Commisioner to India, Harinder Sidhu, visited PAU to enhance ties in areas of crop production and water management.
Norwegian diplomat, Mr NilsRagnar Kamsvag toured theUniversity to explore areas of collaboration.
Eminent economist and Former Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission, Dr Montek Singh Ahluwalia addressed faculty on need for risk mitigating system to stem farm distress.
New appointments
The University appointed Dr MIS Gill, Senior Horticulturist as Additional Director f Research (Horticulture and Fruit Science.)
PAU Dean PGS, Dr Neelam Grewal was appointed as member of the Punjb Public Service Commission (PPSC)
New members namely, Dr D.S. Brar, Adjunct Professor, Shri Anoop Bector, Cremica Industries and progressive farmers, Mrs Manjit Kaur, and S Devinder Singh Chahal, Dr Sujay Rakshit, Director, IIMR were appointed in the PAU Board of Management.
Dr Narinder Singh, Senior Plant Pathologist was appointed as Head, Department of Plant Pathalogy for four years.
Dr T.S. Riar, Professor of Extension Education joined as Associate Director, Skill Development, PAU.
Awards to faculty
Dr T.S. Thind, Adjunct Professor and Additional Director of Research received the ‘IPS Recognition Award’ by the Indian Phytopathological Society.
Senior Soil Scientist, Dr S.S. Dhaliwal was awarded with International Zinc Award for promoting zinc in Indian agriculture.
Dr Hari Ram, Senior Agronomist was honoured with ‘Fellow Award’ in resource management by Society for Advancement of wheat and barley research.
Dr O.P Chaudhry, Senior Soil Scientist bagged the ‘ISSS-Dr J.S.P. Yadav Memorial Award’ for excellence in Soil Science.
PAU Senior Research Engineer, Dr Mohammad Shafiq Alam, Department of Processing and Food Engineering won the National Commendation Medal from Indian Society of Agricultural Engineers (ISAE) for his contributions to post harvest process and food engineering.
Dr Jawala Jindal bagged the ‘Best Poster Award’ at the 13th Asian Maize Conference at Ludhiana.
Dr Parminder Singh Shera won the ‘Best Paper Award’ at Conference on Biological Control: Approaches and Applications, held at Bangalore.
Dr Madhu Bala, Assistant Floriculturist, and Dr Nitika Sandhu were conferred with the ‘ Young Scientist Award’ for contribution in field of floriculture and best oral presentation at International Conference on Food Security at Patiala, respectively.
Dr Rajan Aggarwal, Senior Research Engineer won the ‘Gold Medal Award 2017’ by the Soil Conservation Society of India.
Dr S.S. Hundal was awarded medal and certificate for contribution in Zoology by the Zoological Society of India.
The agricultural engineers of PAU bagged maximum awards during the 52ndAnnual Convention of Indian Society of Agricultural Engineers (ISAE) and National Symposium on “Doubling Farmers Income through Technological Interventions,” held at Anand Agricultural University, Anand (Gujarat)
Awards to students
Beant Singh Brar, from College of Agriculture represented India and clinched ‘Silver Medal’ in Subrata Classic International Powerlifting Championship at Jamshedpur.
Rajbir Singh, a Ph.D student bagged the prestigious ‘Jawahar Lal Nehru Scholarship’ for doctoral studies.
Jagreeti Gupta, a Ph.D scholar and Aanchal Aggarwal, MSc student were awaded ‘Best Research Paper Award’ at National Symposium at Kalyani, West Bengal and National Conference at Roorkee, respectively.
Purnima Mehta, Manpreet Singh, Pallavi Sharma, Neha Verma, Ph.D scholars from the University were awarded ‘INSPIRE Fellowship’ by Department of Science and Technology, for their doctoral research.
Antima Gupta, a Ph.D student of the Department of Food Science and Technology bagged the ‘Best paper Award’ at 3rd International Conference on Food Properties held at Sharjah, UAE.
Manjot Kaur, a Ph.D student of Extension Education Communication was awarded the ICSSR Doctoral Fellowship for research.
Prashant Sahani, bhadra Parija, Rajbir Khedwal Ph.D scholars, won ‘Best Poster Award’ at various National conferences held in the country.
Navneetha Krishnan and Pushpinder Brar, Ph.D students won the ‘Best Presenter Award’ at International Agriculture Students Symposium at Malaysia and National Seminar on Faunal Diversity at PAU respectively..
Neha Aggarwal, Ph.D student, Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, won the ‘Commonwealth Split-Site Fellowship’ funded by U.K. Government.
Manpreet Kaur, a Ph.D student bagged a research project worth Rs 600000/- from Department of Science and Technology, Government of India.
Mehraj Din Dar, a Ph.D student won the CSIR fellowship for doctoral research.
Ashok Babadev Jagtap, a Ph.D student was awarded SERB fellowship for conducting research at Purdue University, USA.
Visits of international delegations and commercialization of PAU technologies
Giving boost to the straw management campaign in the state, PAU signed 120 MoAs for commercialization of ‘PAU Super Straw Management System’ (SMS) technology.
Pacts were also inked with tractor giant TAFE and other companies for commercialization of happy seeder and PAU Cutter cum Spreader. Various technologies including hybrid lines of mustard, chilli, brinjal varieties, bio-fertilizers, leaf colour chart, water testing kit, apple cider, sugarcane juice, brewed fruit vinegar, bell pepper and others were commercialized by the University.
Delegations from Kansas State University, Michigan State University, South Dakota State University, Montana State University, University of Canberra, University of Melbourne, Bhutan, Egypt, Australia, U.K., CIMMY, Mexico, Netherlands, Nigeria, Israel visited PAU to deliberate on the scope of collaboration, have an overview of Punjab’s agriculture, and learn about University’s research, teaching and extension programmes.
New Buildings
The Dr Amrita Pritam Girls Hostel was inaugurated by former Chief Election Commissioner, Dr M.S. Gill. He had earlier donated Rs 60 lakh for the construction of the hostel.
The launch of the Skill Development Centre was an important development of the year. The center conducts trainings, workshops for honing skills of youth in different enterprises, which will ultimately lead to increased production as well as income.
Additionally, PAU bagged several research projects. It also provided trainings to hundreds of farmers on various aspects of agriculture and allied enterprises. Under the stewardship of Dr Baldev Singh Dhillon, Vice-Chancellor, PAU, it has been a year of well deserved glory achieved through commitment and hard work of faculty and students.
Dr Dhillon wishes faculty, staff and students of PAU a Happy and Prosperous New Year.
PAU GRIEVES THE LOSS OF ITS FORMER VICE CHANCELLORS
Former PAU Vice Chancellor and eminent agricultural scientist, Dr Gurcharan Singh Kalkat, passed away on 27.12.18. Known as the voice of farmers in the Government, Dr Kalkat’s demise is a huge loss to the entire agricultural fraternity.
Dr Amarjiot Singh Khehra, former PAU Vice Chancellor and ace maize breeder Dr Khehra breathed his last on 25.10.18. With exemplary work in the field of maize varieties, Dr Khehra will be remembered as a legendary scientist and a kind human being.