West Bengal government comes up with new type of rice, 'Muktoshri'

KOLKATA: West Bengal government’s rice research centre has come up with a new variety of rice called Muktoshri that can be grown in arsenic prone areas.

There are 81 arsenic affected blocks in the state. The cultivation of the new variety of rice will take 125 to 130 days.

Some other new varieties of rice have also been prepared by the Chinsurah and Bankura rice research centres. It includes Gosaba I and Chinsurah Nona-II varieties for the soil with high level of salinity. Most importantly, Satabdi variety has been replaced with Ajit, which is also used for short-term cultivation and it takes around 115 days.

For the first time, a new variety of jute seed has also been prepared by the Jute Research Centre of the state Government at Krishnanagar and it has been named as Gouranga. The new variety will result in a yield of 23 quintal per hectare, which is 10 per cent more than the yield of the current variety.