NDMC to teach school students to rear bees in its parks

The New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) will start optional bee-keeping classes for its school students from December. The civic body said that the aim of the initiative is to promote apiculture (the technique of rearing bees).

The NDMC said that a feasibility study for the project was done and they have also shortlisted three parks, out of which one will be selected for setting up a laboratory, bee boxes and conducting classes.

According to NDMC officials, this will be first such initiative in the national capital. They, however, said that such experiments were successfully carried out earlier in Himachal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.

“To set up the bee-keeping lab and bee boxes we had to find such a place which is at least 200 meters away from residential areas and markets. So, after an intense search, we have selected three gardens where such an experiment was possible. These places include Talkatora Garden, Lodhi Garden and Nehru Park. Out of these three, one will be where we will initiate the project,” a senior NDMC official said on the condition of anonymity.

The initiative was announced by the previous NDMC chairman Naresh Kumar during the Council’s budget session for 2019-20 in January this year.

RP Gupta, NDMC’s director education, said that the aim of the project was to encourage classes in the open, and promote bee-keeping and gardening as a hobby among students. He said that the project was being taken up in consultation with the National Bee Board of the ministry of agriculture and farmers welfare of the centre government.

“Other than a hobby, bee-keeping will help in increasing students’ employability. Special classes will be started for this course. These classes will not be conducted in the school premises, but in the natural environment at the place where lab will be set up. These special classes will be of six weeks to 10 weeks’ duration and one batch will be of 38 to 40 students. No extra fee will be charged from the students to join this training,” Gupta said.

The officials said that they would authorise more batches if the experiment received good response.

NDMC secretary Rashmi Singh said that bees not only provide honey, but also play a vital role in pollination of various flowering and fruit plants.

There are 45 schools which are run by the civic body in the city and over 30,000 students study at these schools.

The civic body is also planning to open the course for general public as well. They, however, said that separate guidelines will be chalked out for this. “We are chalking out modalities regarding how normal public can participate in this skill training and what can be the fee structure for them,” an official said.