India: ‘Potato king’ nominated to PAU board

JANG Bahadur Singh Sangha, better known as king of potato cultivation, has been nominated as a new member of the board of management of the Punjab Agricultural University (PAU). PAU Vice-Chancellor K S Aulakh, said that Sangha replaced Ranjit Singh Rana on the board. He is the third alumnus of the PAU to be nominated to the PAU board of management.

Two former PAU students- Avtar Singh Dhindsa and Adesh Kanwarjit Singh Brar- have served as members of the board of management earlier. While Dhindsa continues to be a member of the board, Brar was elected MLA from Muktsar.

Sangha is an internationally acclaimed potato grower from village Quadian Wali in Jalandhar district. Through tissue culture technique, Sangha produces potato seed tubers on scientific lines on his 5,500 acres of farmlands, spread across the districts of Jalandhar, Kapurthala and Ludhiana. He produces 55,000 tonnes of high quality seed potatoes annually and supplies to farmers throughout India, as well as abroad.

He has his own state-of-the-art tissue culture facility and plant pathology laboratory for disease testing. Sangha did his B.Sc Agriculture (Hons) from PAU in 1990 and completed his masters from Cornell University, USA, in 1994.

His father, Hardev Singh Sangha, is also a graduate of the 1959 batch of the Punjab Agriculture College, Ludhiana, which later became the PAU.

Source: cities.expressindia.com