Excelsior Correspondent
KATRA, July 1: In the past few days, two groups of over 60 Indian Forest Service Officers undergoing training at the Indira Gandhi National Forest Academy, Dehradun, visited the hi-technology Nursery set up by Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board at Kunia Panthal. This Nursery has been established to produce indigenous species of plants, compatible with the local climatic conditions, for the greening of the Trikuta Hills.
The Panthal state-of-the-art Nursery is producing 25,000 – 30,000 plants per season while the extensive Naturally Ventilated Poly Greenhouses produce about 1.4 lakh plants and seedlings every season. The Nursery is equipped with a large vermi compost unit and a water storage tank.
Overall, the Nursery has the capacity to produce four lakh quality saplings and seedlings per annum to meet the annual planting material requirements of the Shrine Board. In the past year the Nursery produced 2.8 lakh plants of which 1.61 lakh plants have already been planted and the remainder will be put in the ground during the ensuing monsoon season at the end of which over 22 lakh plants would have been planted since the Nursery was established.
Governor N N Vohra, Chairman of the Shrine Board, who had decided that the Board should set up its own Nursery for large scale afforestation of the Trikuta Hills, complimented the two Indian Forest Service Officers of J&K cadre who have contributed to this valuable initiative – B Mohandas who has since re-joined his parent department and Dr M K Kumar who is presently serving as Additional CEO of the Shrine Board.
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