Agricultural universities facing fund, manpower crunch: Official

AURANGABAD: There is a need to find new pomegranate universities to match local climatic conditions, but agricultural universities were facing shortage of funds and manpower, a top functionary of the All India Pomegranate Growers Association said on Monday.

Prabhakar Chandane, president of All India Pomegranate Growers Association, told PTI foreign universities should be imported for research if the problems of funds and manpower cannot be sorted out.

"There is need to new pomegranate universities that would match Indian weather and environment. However, the work is stalling due to problems faced by universities here. If it cannot be overcome, then we should bring universities from abroad and see how they adapt here," he said.

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He said pomegranate from Turkey was nudging out Indian exports to Europe, while trade in the fruit with Bangladesh was getting affected by high import duty imposed in the neighbouring country. He praised the Union government for giving subsidy on shade nets that protect the pomegranate produce from diseases.