Monitoring activities of the federal funded project "Integration of Agriculture Research and Extension" was reviewed by a high-level meeting held here on Friday.
The meeting was chaired by provincial Agriculture Secretary Sabhgo Khan Jotoi and was attended, among others, by Dr Qader Bux Baloch, Wheat Commissioner government of Pakistan,
Dr Akber Shah Mohmand, deputy project director, Crop Maximisation, MINFAL, A.B.Kalhoro. Dr Baloch highlighting the project's aims and objectives, said that the main objective of the project was to improve the productivity-level by adopting modern agriculture production technologies developed by the research scholars.
He said: "The federal government is supporting provincial agriculture departments through the project of integration of research and extension activities so that the findings of the research could be passed on to the farming community at their doorsteps by establishing demonstration plots on their lands."
The provincial secretary Agriculture informed the meeting that under this project, a detailed programme of organising seminars and farmers' field day and media campaign have been prepared and most of the activities is expected to start during the Kharif season.
RAIN HAVOC: Heavy downpour, accompanied by lightning and thunderstorm, lashed Hyderabad late Friday evening, causing a major power breakdown exposing the ineptness of Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa).
The rain, according to the local Met office was recorded 38mm in the city while 16mm at the airport.
The downpour has started at 6.40 p.m. and continued for more than an hour without any interruption submerging roads and low-lying areas under ankle-to-knee deep water. People, who have been experiencing scorching heat, heaved a sigh of relief as the rain brought the temperature to 24 degree from 40.5 centigrade recorded before the rain.
The thunderstorm uprooted trees and signboards creating traffic hazards and there were traffic jams.
The Wasa cut a sorry figure as it has no standby arrangement to clear the stagnant rainwater and most of its machines at the pumping station were also not in good shape despite the fact that in last year's monsoon season, machines worth Rs1.6 million were handed over to the agency but these were not properly maintained. Latifabad was the worst affected area as its sewerage lines in Unit no-11 were already lying damaged which had further aggravated the sewerage problems.
The entire city plunged into darkness with the first drop of rains.
According to Hesco officials, the thunderstorm has broken the high-tension wires, which were lying on the ground and "it is difficult to restore the power supply."