Bharat Ratna Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam inaugurates CTCRI Golden Jubilee Celebrations

28th January, 2013,Thiruvananthapuram

“Tuber crops have got tremendous potential for value addition so that the income of the farmers can be increased”. This was the message conveyed to the nation by Bharat Ratna Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, Former President of India while inaugurating the curtain raiser ceremony of the Golden Jubilee celebrations of Central Tuber Crops Research Institute Thiruvananthapuram on January 28, 2013. Dr Kalam inaugurated the celebrations amidst a large gathering of former Directors, retired scientists, current scientists, staff and their families and wished the Institute to grow further to achieve great heights. During his inaugural speech, Dr Kalam stressed that the farmers must get involved in value addition of products to raise their income through cooperatives. He opined that agriculture and food processing is one of the five areas where India has a core competence for integrated action and tuber crops products have enormous potential in encouraging rural entrepreneurship. The former President expressed his appreciation for the CTCRI and congratulated the institution for ‘releasing 47 varieties of different tuber crops with high yielding potential, with assured world highest productivity of 36 tonnes per hectare’. Dr Kalam also shared his valuable thoughts on the ‘birth of a happy, prosperous and enlightened human life’ with his unique style and infused lots of energy in the gathering. He gifted a collection of his priceless books to CTCRI.

Earlier in the programme, Dr. S.K. Chakrabarti, Director, CTCRI briefed the achievements of the Institute and initiated the curtain raiser ceremony of the Golden Jubilee celebrations. Dr. James George, Project Coordinator, AICRPTC welcomed the gathering and Dr. G. Padmaja, Head, Crop Utilisation proposed vote of thanks. During the programme, awards were presented to outstanding administrative, technical and supporting staff of CTCRI for their contribution in helping scientists to develop improved tuber crops technologies.

(Source: CTCRI, Thiruvananthapuram)