Chandigarh, Mar 6 (IANS): Asian Development Bank's Project Readiness Financing Mission team led by Sunae Kim, team leader for the Himachal Pradesh Sub-tropical Horticulture, Irrigation and Value Addition (HP SHIVA) project, met Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu here on Monday and apprised him about objectives and scope of the mission.
The Chief Minister said 257 clusters have been selected in the first phase of Rs 1,292 crore HP Shiva project. Target has been set to benefit about 15,000 farmers by setting up orchards on 4,000 hectares.
He said this project will be implemented in five years and sub-tropical fruit-crop gardens will be set up in about 400 clusters on 6,000 hectares in two phases.
The Chief Minister stressed on the plantation of various other fruit plants that can be grown in low-lying areas so that the fruit diversity in the area could also be increased.