The Ginning Training Centre of CIRCOT at Nagpur Celebrated Silver Jubilee

Nagpur, 11 December, 2011

To celebrate the 25 years of its glorious service to the cotton community, the Ginning Training Centre of Central Institute for Research on Cotton Technology (CIRCOT), Nagpur organized Silver Jubilee Function here today. Dr. S. Ayyappan, Secretary, DARE and Director General, Indian Council of Agricultural Research lauded the achievements of the Centre over the years in his address as Chief Guest. Dr. Ayyappan stressed upon the need that the Centre should now become global by organizing international training programmes for Afro-Asian countries and by offering consultancy in the field of ginning and value-addition of cotton plant by-produce. Dr. Ayyappan appreciated the efforts of CIRCOT in the area of Secondary Agriculture much before the agricultural community thought about this issue, and praised the Public Private Partnership (PPP) programme existing at CIRCOT with the active participation of M/s.  Bajaj Steel Industries Ltd. He exhorted the Bajaj Group to establish a Chair of Excellence in Post-harvest processing and value-addition at CIRCOT to further the strong bond already existing at the institute.

Dr. M. M.. Pandey, Deputy Director General (Engineering), ICAR while delivering the Presidential Address emphasized that the Ginning Training Centre is an excellent example of PPP and this should be followed as a model for others and wished the centre all the success in the years ahead.

Dr. C. D. Mayee, Former Chairman, ASRB, Dr. A. B. Joshi, Textile Commissioner, Mumbai, Dr. V. M. Mayande, Vice Chancellor, Dr. Panjabrao Deshmukh Krishi Vidyapeeth, Akola, Dr. C. S. Prasad, Vice Chancellor, Maharashtra Animal and Fishery Sciences University, Nagpur and Dr. M. K. Sharma, President, Bajaj Steel Industries also graced the occasion.

A technical seminar was also organized to discuss and deliberate upon the future programmes of the Centre. Former Directors of CIRCOT and Heads of Centre were felicitated by the Director General for their contributions. A publication on the achievements of the centre was also released by the Director General.  Personnel from the industry apart from a large contingent of scientists from the ICAR institutes located at Nagpur participated in the celebration.

The Ginning training centre of CIRCOT at Nagpur was established on December 7, 1985 with the assistance from the World Bank. This centre, only of its kind in the Afro-Asian continent was established to impart training to personnel involved in ginning and carry out research in development of new ginning machinery has brought out innovative modifications in the existing machinery to make them more energy efficient. The centre is now equipped with most modern ginning machinery and also scientific oil extraction plant for cottonseed and a particle board plant which are being used for R & D work on By-produce utilization as well as incubation facility for budding entrepreneurs.

(Source: NAIP Sub-Project on Mass Media Mobilization, DKMA with inputs from CIRCOT, Mumbai)