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Dr. Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University, Pusa

In the imperial Gazetteer of India 1878, Pusa was recorded as a government estate of about 1350 acres in Darbhanba. It was acquired by East India Company for running a stud farm to supply better breed of horses mainly for the army. Frequent incidence of glanders disease (swelling of glands), mostly affecting the valuable imported bloodstock made the civil veterinary department to shift the entire stock out of Pusa. A British tobacco concern Beg Sutherland & co. got the estate on lease but it also left in 1897 abandoning the government estate of Pusa. Lord Mayo, The Viceroy and Governor General, had been repeatedly trying to get through his proposal for setting up a directorate general of Agriculture that would take care of the soil and its productivity, formulate newer techniques of cultivation, improve the quality of seeds and livestock and also arrange for imparting agricultural education. The government of India had invited a British expert. Dr. J. A. Voelcker who had submitted as report on the development of Indian agriculture. As a follow-up action, three experts in different fields were appointed for the first time during 1885 to 1895 namely, agricultural chemist (Dr. J. W. Leafer), cryptogamic botanist (Dr. R. A. Butler) and entomologist (Dr. H. Maxwell Lefroy) with headquarters at Dehradun (U.P.) in the forest Research Institute complex. Surprisingly, until now Pusa, which was destined to become the centre of agricultural revolution in the country, was lying as before an abandoned government estate. In 1898. Lord Curzon took over as the viceroy. A widely traveled person and an administrator, he salvaged out the earlier proposal and got London’s approval for the appointment of the inspector General of Agriculture to which the first incumbent Mr. J. Mollison (Dy. Director of Agriculture, Bombay) joined in 1901 with headquarters at Nagpur The then government of Bengal had mooted in 1902 a proposal to the centre for setting up a model cattle farm for improving the dilapidated condition of the livestock at Pusa estate where plenty of land, water and feed would be available, and with Mr. Mollison’s support this was accepted in principle. Around Pusa, there were many British planters and also an indigo research centre Dalsing Sarai (near Pusa). Mr. Mollison’s visits to this mini British kingdom and his strong recommendations. In favour of Pusa as the most ideal place for the Bengal government project obviously caught the attention for the viceroy.

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20211
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Subject: Soil and Water Engineering × Author: G M, RAJESH × Start date: 2020 × Type: Thesis ×
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    ASSESSMENT OF SURFACE WATER RESOURCE IN SAMASTIPUR DISTRICT OF BIHAR USING RS AND GIS
    (DRPCAU, PUSA, 2021) G M, RAJESH; Prasad, Sudarshan
    The study region, Samastipur district of Bihar surrounded by 5 km buffer zone was divided into 67 square grids of 8 km × 8 km spatial resolution using (ArcGIS) software version 10.7.1. The monthly rainfall images (TRMM_3B43) for the period of 20 years from the years of 2000 to 2019 and the monthly dataset of LST (GLDAS_NOAH025_M_EP) products of 0.25o × 0.25o grid size for the period of 21 years from 2000 to 2020 were downloaded and used for analysis. The climatic variables viz. monthly rainfall and LST values were extracted for all grid points (GP-1 to GP-67) using the model builder tool of ArcGIS. Following the recommendation of WMO, the 14 grid points between GP-44 and GP-66 falling under the circumferential coverage of 3000 km2 (radius of 30.90 km) in flat area from MS, Pusa were considered for comparison and validated with ground-based climatic variables measured at MS, Pusa. The graphical technique and statistical techniques like Pearson correlation coefficient (PCC), mean error (ME), root mean square error (RMSE), bias (B), and Percent bias (PB) were used for comparison. Bias in extracted climatic variables was identified and was corrected using linear scaling. The Landsat-8 imageries were used to develop LULC using supervised classification technique in ArcGIS. The accuracy assessment was carried out using visual observation, Google Earth image, mathematical analysis and the kappa coefficient. The validated soil map of the study area was procured from NBSS and LUP, Nagpur, India and reclassified into soil textural classes. The available water capacity (AWC) of the soil was computed based upon the land use, soil texture and rooting depth following the suggestion of Thornthwaite and Mather (1957). The surplus and deficit water for all the grid points area was estimated using computed monthly PET, AET and AS as input parameters. Thematic maps of potential evapotranspiration, actual evapotranspiration and availability of surplus and deficit water over the study area were developed using inverse distance weighted interpolation technique of ArcGIS. The study investigated that estimated PET was progressively increasing from January to June and thereafter gradually decreasing from July to December. PET was found maximum (120.7 mm) for the month June and minimum (5.5 mm) for the month January and similar pattern were observed in case of AET. During the months of July (85.3 mm), August (83.9 mm) and September (81.1 mm), AET and PET were found to be equal. The LULC map depicted the five types of land use feature classes viz. agricultural land, barren land, forest land, settlement and water body in the region. Silt loam, clay loam and clay were observed as major soil textural classes distributed in the study region. The study area undergoes an annual water deficit of 121.2 mm distributed during the months of February to May, November and December whereas, the annual water surplus of 523.8 mm during the months of January, July to September.