Excelsior Correspondent
LEH, Jan 15: Secretary Industries & Commerce (I&C) Department Ladakh, Saugat Biswas chaired the first meeting of the UT Level Apex Committee for development and promotion of sea buckthorn in Ladakh.
The meeting was attended by Secretary Cooperatives Department Ladakh Ravinder Kumar, Chief Conservator of Forest Preet Pal Singh, Director DIHAR Dr O P Chaurasia, Moses Kunzang (Director Industries & Commerce), convener UTLBC Tsering Morup; Horticulture Development Officer Leh, ARC Cooperative Leh Kunzang Wangmo, Manager, Directorate of Industries and Commerce, Deachen Yangdol and others.
The meeting started with a detailed presentation regarding sea buckthorn production, analysis and present plantation cover and as on date statistics of harvesting, methods used for harvesting and products made by local entrepreneurs, till date.
It was decided in the meeting that DIHAR will conduct a comprehensive survey to update the actual coverage of sea buckthorn plantation in Ladakh, so that realistic future interventions and plans could be formulated.
Secretary Industries Biswas tasked the Directorate of industries and Commerce to prepare a list of entrepreneurs presently engaged in sea buckthorn industry so that an analysis could be done to understand at what level the UT Administration could support their up-gradation.
Threadbare discussion was also held in the meeting regarding development of model orchards in selected plantation area of sea buckthorn and securing necessary permissions from the Forest Department. The committee discussed the various means by which local demand for sea buckthorn product can be augmented. It also deliberated on various issues like need for promotion of entrepreneurs in tetra packaging and other packaging techniques.
The committee observed that at the present stage the most important factor is the demand constraint, as majority of the sea buckthorn still remains un-harvested. The committee decided that promotion of demand needs to be done in parallel with development of micro processing units. The committee further observed that guaranteed quantity of supply of sea-buckthorn needs to be there for attracting and meeting up the demand of big brands of the country.
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