The Union government has established banana research centre at Goraul in Vaishali district of Bihar.
It will function under Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University (RPCAU) at Pusa in Samastipur.
It is second such in the country after the National Research Centre for Banana at Tiruchirapalli in Tamil Nadu.
The centre will focus on the reasons for less production of banana and will work on expansion of its cultivation, plant protection, suitable utilisation of various parts of it such as pulp and fibre, marketing, processing, and value addition etc.
Maharashtra is the largest banana producing state in the country with productivity of 65.7 tonnes per hectare.
Overall the banana production in India stands at 142 lakh tonnes per year.
