An Institutional Attachment training programme was conducted for IAS Officer Trainees of 2018 batch on Thursday under Winter Study Tour at ICAR-Indian Institute of natural Resins and Gums, Ranchi. The purpose of this attachment training was to expose the newly recruited officers to the functioning of good public sector/private sector/institutions and their role in national economy/society.
Dr KK Sharma, Director, ICAR-IINRG welcomed and briefed about the world’s largest research system of ICAR and its network of more than 108 research institutes and centers across the country. These research institutes deals with various research aspects on different agricultural crops/commodities. He informed that India is largest producer in lac, gum karaya and guar gum. He interacted with the IAS Officer Trainees for their feedback about the NRG sector and emphasized that production, processing, value addition and product development of NRG sector need to be addressed for sustainable development.
He briefed that natural resins and gums are directly concerned with the tribal community spread over 70 out of 155 disadvantage districts of the country. Non-timber forest produce especially natural resins and gums are low volume high value crops and most produce are exported in raw form and imported back to the country after processing and value addition. He stressed upon the need of processing and development of lac, other resin and gum based high value products in the country for their remunerative price as well as increasing domestic consumption.
On this occasion, Dr Soumen Ghosal, Head, Lac Production Division briefed about the various research activities related to scientific cultivation of lac. Dr Sanjay Srivastava, Head, Process and Product Development Division briefed about the activities in the field of value addition and product development. Dr Nirmal Kumar, Head Transfer of Technology Division briefed about the various extension activities.
During the visit, IAS Officer Trainees got live demonstration of lac cultivation at Institute Research Farm & exposure at Institute Museum on NRGs. A total of 18 IAS Officer Trainees from various States attended the programme. The experts, scientists and staff of the institute were also present during the function.
