Rice research centre loses land to govt projects

KORAPUT: Shortage of land has hit rice-research hard at the Regional Research and Technology Transfer Sub-Station (RRTTS) at Jeypore.
Officials said RRTTS, which is run by the OUAT, Bhubaneswar, had 27 acres of land to carry out rice research. However, this has drastically come down due to illegal encroachments and government projects.
In late 80s at least three acres of land of the RRTTS was used for the main canal of the Kolab dam. Now, five acres of land is going be absorbed by the Centre sponsored Ranchi-Vijayawada corridor which will pass through the sub-station. Moreover, in the absence of any boundary wall, a few acres of the sub-station has been illegally encroached.
According to the junior breeder of RRTTS Parshuram Sial, as the dry up-land of the sub-station will be used for the road project, the aerobic rich research work of the sub-station will be adversely affected.
"We asked the concerned officials to provide us with five acres of land in some other place near the sub-station but to no avail. The sub-station also needs a boundary wall to stop encroachments by private parties," he added.
The centre was established 1936 by the then King of Jeypore to preserve the indigenous varieties of paddy of the area. Later, it came under the state agriculture department and in 1968 it was transferred to the OUAT. Till date, at least 170 varieties of locally produced paddy, including 40 scented types, have been preserved by the centre. Manaswani and Prathika varieties of paddy developed by the centre in 2008 yield around 35 quintals of paddy from an acre of land which is much higher than most other varieties.
"The RRTTS has been instrumental in preserving several home-grown paddy-varieties of the area and supplying seeds to the farmers. All efforts should be made to ensure that the research work of the centre is not hit by scarcity of land," said a Koraput based tribal researcher, Paresh Rath.
(Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bhubaneswar/Rice-research-centre-loses-land-to-govt-projects/articleshow/7470854.cms)