In a bizarre incident, claims of cultivation of prohibitively costly hop shoots in Bihar’s Aurangabad have turned out to be false. Hop shoots, known to sell at a whopping Rs 1 lakh per kg, were claimed to have been cultivated in the interiors of Bihar’s Aurangabad. An IAS officer had even tweeted this. But, after a wild goose chase by the media persons, it turned out that no such crop was being cultivated anywhere in India.
The news went viral after IAS officer Supriya Sahoo claimed that one Amresh Singh was cultivating the very costly crop. She said Singh is the first farmer to cultivate hop shoots in India. She tweeted it on March 31 and within no time, over 24000 netizens liked this and over 5000 had retweeted this. The farmer became an instant celebrity.
When curious mediapersons rushed to Amresh Singh’s village, there was no such crop. When asked, the locals said no such crop was being cultivated. Then the mediapersons went to Amresh Singh. Amresh told them that he was cultivating hop shoots in Nalada, which is a good 179 km away. The mediapersons went to Nalanda, but drew a zilch. Later, the district administration has announced that no such crop was being cultivated in the district.
Hop shoots are use in beer making in North America and Europe and are much in demand. However, the weather in Bihar is totally unsuitable for hop shoot cultivation. The netizens are now turning their ire on the IAS officer, who had tweeted without verifying the ground facts.
