Minister impressed by ‘ragi mudde’ and dosa-making machines; savours dishes

Mysore/Mysuru: Minister of Information Technology-Biotechnology, Higher Education, Science and Technology Dr. C.N. Ashwathnarayan said that the State Government would fully support the CSIR-Central Food Technological Research Institute (CFTRI), Mysuru, to set up a finishing school in the area of food technology.

He was speaking after visiting the CFTRI campus last evening where he inspected the over 40 products and technologies developed by the premier food technology institute. He was impressed by the ‘ragi mudde’-making machine and dosa-making machine and called the innovations path-breaking. He even savoured the dosa and ‘ragi mudde’.

The Minister participated in the presentation of prototypes of various machines for over three hours and his attention was drawn to the efforts of the CFTRI in augmenting the income of rural women and self-help groups.

Scientists told the Minister that many women’s self-help groups were preparing homemade products like ‘karadantu’, ‘peda’ and ‘pickles’ but they cannot preserve these products for a long time as the products have very short shelf-life. They told him that the CFTRI was ready to help the women to offer technologies to give longer life for their products.

Even training will be provided for the women in the technologies that will help them augment their income and continue their businesses. Scientists told the Minister that as the CFTRI was the only institute having this expertise, the Government must come forward to support it so that it can benefit women.

Responding positively to the request, Dr. Ashwathnarayan suggested that the products made by women self-help groups must get attractive packaging, branding and a good market. The CSIR-CFTRI can help them in this direction too. This will improve their financial sustainability, he said.

The scientists told the Minister that CFTRI was also ready to impart knowledge to farmers and fruit growers on fruit processing skills so that it can help them prevent losses.

CFTRI’s meat and fish technology scientist H.S. Satish said that facilities can be made to farmers to test the quality of their produce and for this, district-level general food processing units can be established. The Minister responded by saying that these issues would be discussed at the Government level.

CFTRI Director Dr. Sridevi Annapurna Singh felt that every farmer need not be required to procure technology developed by CFTRI. Instead, such technologies can be established in Gram Panchayats or in farmer produce centres.

 The Minister visited the Incubation Centre set up inside the CFTRI campus built by IT-BT Department and also chaired a meeting with the Director and senior scientists on other activities taken up by the institute.