At the beginning of May, the administration of the Academy of Sciences of Armenia received from the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure a draft decision on expropriating the 6.2 hectare area belonging to the Institute of Hydroponics Problems after G.S. Davtyan. Anna Tadevosyan, deputy director of the institute's scientific department, told NEWS.am Tech that the institute was very surprised by this proposal.

According to her, the justification of the draft decision was particularly offensive, according to which the 6.2 ha area allocated to the institute is not actually used.

Anna Tadevosyan added that the institute does have an unused area, but it is only 2 hectares. The area used to be an apricot orchard, but it dried up due to the lack of irrigation water.

"Previously, we had already given our consent to transfer those 2 hectares to the Patrol Service. But there was no mention of the remaining 4.2 hectares, and the proposal to transfer it to the music school was unexpected and is unacceptable for us," he said.

Anna Tadevosyan mentioned that the administrative building of the institute and a number of other buildings are located in this area, and only the old boiler house and the building of the experimental design laboratory are not used, although its first floor is intended for storage.

The experimental hydroponic plant, the experimental-vegetation field and other areas intended for experimental works are located in that area.

"We have a water-stream hydroponic system, we recently launched a drip hydroponic system, we have an organic hydroponic module," she said.

Anna Tadevosyan mentioned that the institute gave a negative conclusion to the draft decision of the Ministry of Territorial Development. After that, the management of the institute was invited to the government for a commission session, which was chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Khachatryan. He informed them that the institute has already agreed to transfer 2 hectares of land to the Patrol Service. But since the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports wants to take another 4.2 hectares for the music school, it was decided to combine these two problems into one.

At the same time, according to the deputy director, the representatives of the government did not spare words of praise about the institute, emphasizing the importance of the research carried out by it for Armenia. As a result, it was decided to continue discussions in the government in order to come to a decision that would not harm the activity of such an important institution.

Anna Tadevosyan reminded that earlier the Department of Natural Sciences of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia considered the possibility of merging the Institute of Hydroponics Problems to the Institute of Botany. According to the draft decision, the transfer of the Institute of Hydroponics Problems should take place only when the territory of the Institute of Botany is furnished with hydroponic plants and all the necessary conditions for its further work are created. However, the government did not respond to the project proposed by the leadership of the Academy.