Meet on fly ash begins at Professor Jayashankar Telangana State Agricultural University today

Rajendranagar: Professor Jayashankar Telangana State Agricultural University (PJTSAU) and New-Delhi based organisation C-Form are jointly organising a two-day national conference on "Use of Fly Ash in Agriculture, Forestry and other applications" on December 17-18 at PJTSAU auditorium.

Singireddy Niranjan Reddy, Minister for Agriculture, Government of Telangana, would be the chief guest at the valedictory session on December 18, wherein the highlights of the deliberations would be presented and recommendations would be drawn.

Fly ash is a residue of burning of coal in thermal power stations. A number of technologies have been developed under the Fly Ash Mission of Central government for use of fly ash in manufacture of bricks, blocks, tiles, cement, use in agriculture, forestry and high technology high value-added products like composites and catalyst material.

For agriculture, fly ash is a good soil ameliorant and also provides micro and macro nutrients. It increases the yield for cereals, oil seeds, horticulture crops. It reduces impact of insects and reduces crust formation. Fly ash has also been proved as a means to reclaim of sodic, saline and waste lands.

The use of fly ash in agriculture may be taken up by agricultural universities in their academic curriculum and application in the field through extension centers and KVKs. The Government of India through its Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change offers to transport and supply free of cost fly ash to the farmers field up to 100km.

In view of its importance and low use in farming, this conference is being organised to sensitise officials from State agriculture department, research & academic institutes and NGOs to make best use of this resource.