Research and Innovation Circle of Hyderabad plans to set up Agritech Park with Rs 25 crore
HYDERABAD: The Research and Innovation Circle of Hyderabad (RICH), promoted by the Telangana government, is planning to set up an ‘Agritech Park’, in Hyderabad, which will focus on crop production techniques, crop management, farm mechanisation and screening of best available seeds.
Speaking to Express on the sidelines of the first anniversary of RICH held as part of BioAsia-2018 here on Saturday, R Bhubesh Kumar, director of food and agriculture, RICH said the park would initially focus mainly on field crops such as sorghum, rice, cotton and horticulture crops like turmeric, sweet oranges, mangoes and vegetables.
Explaining about the kind of work that the proposed park would undertake, Kumar said it will screen the seeds available in the market for the target field and horticulture crops and select the best of them. Information about the utility of these seeds would be provided to farmers, who can visit the Agritech Park and even test the seeds at testing fields. The park will also collect information of various resilient land races of the crops developed by farmers.
The Agritech Park will also serve as an incubation centre for startups that are working in the field of agriculture. It would provide space and technical facilities for any startup and even established companies, if they are interested in conducting research at their centre. Incubation, tech-demonstration, research and development and commercialisation would be the focus areas of Agritech Park, Kumar said.
Ajit Rangnekar, Director General of RICH, speaking to media said that the Agritech Park is being planned to be spread over of 75 acres, with a proposed outlay of `25 crore and would come up in the next one year.
IT minister KT Rama Rao said initially the park may be first set up in Professor Jayashankar Telangana State Agriculture University and later shifted.