North India’s first Industrial Biotech Park was on Saturday inaugurated by union minister Dr. Jitendra Singh at Ghatti near Kathua.

Addressing a massive public meeting after inaugurating the park, Dr. Jitendra Singh said, the Biotech Park would act as a hub for incubation of new ideas and will act as a robust platform to support the Agri-entrepreneurs, Startups, Progressive farmers, scientists, scholars, and students not only from Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh but also from nearby states of Punjab, Haryana, and Himachal Pradesh.

Dr. Jitendra Singh said that the biotechnology park at Kathua has the potential to produce 25 startups in a year which will be among its great contributions to this region.

The Minister said the facilities like herbal extraction, fermentation, analytical lab., distillation, micropropagation, and plant tissue culture would be available in Biotech Park, Ghatti Kathua besides the provision of technology incubation, training & skill development.

Dr. Jitendra Singh also said that the work on two Industrial Biotech Parks, one at Ghatti, Kathua, Jammu, and the other in Handwara, Kashmir jointly funded by the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India, Ministry of Science & Technology and Jammu & Kashmir Science, Technology & Innovation Council was started in February 2019.

He said this biotech park will carry out research on biodiversity, medicinal and aromatic plants of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, and it will also promote green category businesses.

Dr. Singh said that with the unlocking of space technology in India under PM Narendra Modi, sixty startups have been established in only one and a half years, Onkar Singh, the young scientist from Jammu present today here is among the best examples of it.

He said that the Startup revolution has now started in J&K, the start-ups under Aroma Mission being the best starting points under it, creating household names in India like Bharat Bhushan, the brand ambassador of Aroma Mission in India who not only doubled but quadrupled his income only in few years.

The Minister emphasised that the StartUps must be sustainable and connected to the livelihood which is the actual mantra of this government creating greater employment opportunities under StartUps. ‘Botlabs’ is the best example of a sustainable startup connected to livelihood which flew 1000 drones during the beating retreat ceremony and is now earning millions for sponsoring the drone shows in the country, Dr. Singh added.

The Minister said that the next twenty-five years are very crucial for this country and when India would be celebrating its 100 years of independence in 2047, the youth of Kathua would be among the great contributors towards making India a ‘Vishwa Guru’.

Dr. Jitendra Singh said that under PM Narendra Modi without any regional bias, the UT of Jammu and Kashmir has seen a new dawn of development in education, health infrastructure, science, and technology.

The establishment of AIIMS, IIM, IIT, IIMC, Space Centre at the Central University of Jammu, Highway villages, Express Corridor, Atal Setu, Mega-Quintal Seed Processing Plants, and Medical Colleges some of which have been established in Kathua are some of the national level development projects J&K has seen in last eight years.