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CFTRI was born along with the Republic of India in the
year 1950 and has, therefore, had the privilege of contributing to the
country's growth and prosperity all the way up until now. Over the
decades, the institute has created a major social impact in India, with
its role in developing technologies for low-cost nutritious food
supplements, and speciality foods for several vulnerable sections of the
society. The institute's work on technologies for protein formulations
from non-conventional sources has been widely hailed for its pioneering
nature, and our technology for Miltone has been honoured with the
Industrial Achievement Award of the Institute of Food Technologists,
USA.
SOCIETAL MISSION AND RURAL
DEVELOPMENT
Over the years, CFTRI has
developed many technologies of special significance to India's rural
development. The novel machines we have invented for making Papads and
leaf-cups and for destoning have, in particular, generated many
opportunities for employment and economic gains in rural India. We have
also been able to achieve good results in bringing about upgradation of
existing food industries and development of new ones; establishment of
prototype food units; and production of value-added products. Our
rural-oriented and agro-based food technologies have, in general, been
very successfully adopted by various co-operatives and cottage industries
throughout India.
The Mission now focuses on promotion and
popularisation of CFTRI's post-harvest technologies still further, for
more productive applications in the backward (rural and tribal) areas of
the country, particularly with the involvement of small-scale and
agro-based entrepreneurs, farmers, women and people from weaker sections.
In order to accomplish this, we organise several programmes that encompass
displays, demonstrations, workshops, training and awareness building:
·
Exhibitions and expositions
· Technology Awareness/Entrepreneurship
Development Programmes
· Process demonstrations and
workshops
EXHIBITIONS AND
EXPOSITIONS
CFTRI participates in different
types of exhibitions, and mass publicity events and forums in urban and
rural areas, where intellectuals, entrepreneurs, farmers and the general
public are enlightened on our R&D activities, achievements and
capabilities. Depending on the theme and the resource background of the
exhibition, we promote appropriate and useful technologies there, by means
of display charts, online databases, audio visual media and on-the-spot
interactive sessions between the business-oriented visitors and the
experts. The one-to-one expert counselling at these sessions has proved to
be particularly useful to the prospective entrepreneurs in getting the
right picture of the technologies immediately relevant and valuable to
them. In addition to a number of places across India, we have participated
in important international exhibitions in the developing countries of
SAARC and Africa.
TAP &
EDP
With a view to cater to the needs of
prospective rural and small scale entrepreneurs-particularly women and
weaker sections-we offer Technology Awareness Programmes (TAP) and
Entrepreneurship Development Programmes (EDP) in the backward and tribal
areas of the country. The programmes focus particularly on post-harvest
handling-sorting, storage, packaging, transportation of agricultural
produce such as fruits, vegetables, grains and spices relevant to the
region, to help the farmers minimise, if not avoid, the losses due to the
non-scientific methods being followed presently.
Our post-harvest
technology awareness programmes on paddy, maize, millet and pulse
processing in regions such as Punjab, UP, Northeast India, Bihar, Orissa
and Karnataka have been very successful, as is evident from the number of
licensees of our grain processes. An important input in the success of
these programmes is the feedback we systematically gather at our various
events, from the visitors and
participants.
PROCESS DEMONSTRATIONS AND
WORKSHOPS
To reinforce the effect of the
awareness programmes, we also regularly organise process demonstrations
and workshops throughout the country. These programmes impart the
knowledge of particular technologies, raw materials, value added products,
packaging, quality and such other aspects to the participants, and give
them a pre-view of how exactly they stand to benefit from it all.
Our
regional centres are also very active in these programmes, and such
programmes offered at Kundrankudi (Tamilnadu), Bastar (MP) and Gouriganj
(UP) show how useful our efforts have been in effecting a real change in
the scenarios of the areas served. It needs to be mentioned here that in
the AP Government/CSIR collaborative project in Karimnagar, CFTRI played a
key role in establishing small-scale and agro-based industries in the
district. The institute also set up a rice-milling unit at Mulkanoor, and
modified some of the existing rice mills there, for better
yields.
During these 51 years, CFTRI has run 200 programmes of
Technology Awareness, Entrepreneurship Development, Demonstration and
Training across the country, particularly in rural and tribal areas, and
for women entrepreneurs, in association with various government,
co-operative and voluntary organisations engaged in rural
development.
(Look under Impact on Industry and Society for more
information on the success of our Societal
Mission.)
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