Mirpurkhas Mango Festival inaugurated

By Abdul Qadir Qureshi
(Pakistan News & Features Services)

The Sindh Senior Education Minister Nisar Ahmed Khuhro, has mentioned that Sindh exports its mangos to 45 countries of the world and earns huge revenue of Rs 39 billion in foreign exchange.

He was addressing at Shaheed Benazir Bhutto Exhibition Hall following the inauguration of 50th Golden Jubilee Mango Festival in Mirpurkhas. He said that more than 76 farmers have introduced different varieties of mangos in this festival. 

He stressed on improvement of quality of mangos and its packing in order to maintain export in 45 countries and for that purpose private sector has also play its part side by side with government. 

The Deputy Commissioner, Rasheed Ahmed Zardari, and the Chairman, Mango Festival Management Committee, Umer Bughio, said that the celebration of Golden Jubilee Festival was an honour for the people of Mirpurkhas. 

They said that the mangos of Mirpurkhas have special identity worldwide, recognizing that the role of district administration, Mango Festival Management Committee and the media remained important. 

Later talking to media Nisar Khuhro said that the Mango Festival was not only limited to Mirpurkhas but it highlighted the whole of the Sindh province. He urged the media to project the festival in a positive style to let the product could fetch more foreign markets. 

To a question Nisar Khuhro said that mangos of Mirpurkhas remained in demand all over the world and it was a praiseworthy effort to have organized the Mango exhibition annually for 50 years. He said that the varieties exhibited in last exhibition were 83 in number, which have increased to 183 during the Golden Jubilee occasion. 

He was of the opinion that further research was required for the production of more varieties, praising the Sindh Horticulture Research Institute Mirpurkhas for doing a fine job. 

Replying to another question, Nisar Khuhro said that paucity of irrigation water and farm diseases have caused damages to some extent to mango farms and for that reason the Sindh Government was introducing reforms in agriculture department to protect mangos and other crops from diseases. 

He later visited in detail different stalls of mangos. He also performed the opening of Family Festival at Police ground and visited stalls.

MPA Khairun Nissa Mughal, former MPA Shamim Ara Panhwar, DIG Javed Alam Odho, SSP Usman Ghani Siddiqui, DC Rasheed Ahmed Zardari, AC-2 Nisar Ahmed Memon, Chairman Festival Committee Umer Bughio, Director Horticulture Ashraf Soomro, Director Primary Education Jalil Lashari and others were also present on the occasion.