Public, including students throng the venue
Mysore :
The two-day Open Day at the Central Food Technological Research Institute (CFTRI) in city began morning with a large number of the public, including students of various schools and colleges of the city thronging the venue.
The students who visited the venue, got a first-hand information about the various innovations at the Institute.
The Open Day is being held as part of the Foundation Day of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), which was inaugurated by Suttur Seer Sri Shivarathri Deshikendra Swamiji.
As part of the Foundation Day, CFTRI is keeping its doors open for the public by holding “Open Days” today and tomorrow.
Public including students from various schools and colleges in city thronged the venue to have a glimpse of the Research and Technology Development being undertaken in the areas of Food Science & Technology and Food Processing at the institute.
Special displays showing the research and development work done at CFTRI as well as some machineries developed by the Institute were demonstrated to the students.
Among the machineries which were demonstrated to the public are Dosa and Chapathi making machine, Pani Poori sheeting and cutting machine, spouted bed roaster, popcorn making machine, glass blowing and Lemon Cutting machines.
Departments of Fermentation Technology and Bioengineering, Protein Chemistry and Technology, Plant Cell Biotechnology, Food Microbiology and others had displayed their products and held demonstrations to students make them understand easily.
CFTRI is open for the public on the Open Day from 11.30 am to 4 pm today and will be open for all from 9.30 am to 4 pm tomorrow.
Prof. Ram Rajasekharan, Director, CSIR-CFTRI, Mysore, who presided over the function said that the CSIR is the largest research and development organisation and the CFTRI, which is under its umbrella, is rendering yeomen service to the nation by establishing robust basic research in Food Technology, developing advanced food processing systems and designing innovations of utility to the masses.
“CSIR aims to provide industrial competitiveness, social welfare, strong base for strategic sectors and advancement of fundamental knowledge, besides focussing on the development of technologies beneficial to farmers, growers and to the society,” he said and added that the Indian Food Processing Sector was the fastest growing sector in the country with registered food processing units contributing 12.3% of the nation’s employment.
Rajasekharan said that the country was still fighting the challenges of malnutrition and impaired food security among others.
He said that CSIR-CFTRI had developed over the years in technologies and innovations to be of support to the food processing industry and added that the technologies of CFTRI had answered the problems of fruit and vegetable losses. He said that the teams at CFTRI were ready with end to end processing solutions, right from the planting stage.
Rajasekharan said that though the teams had diversified strengths, their mission is to create all the necessary technologies and innovations for food secure and nutrition secure nation.
A memorandum of Understanding was also signed between CSIR-CFTRI and Palakkad Coconut Producer Company Limited, Kerala.
source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> General News / Friday , September 26th, 2014