ICAR-CIRCOT conducted 29th Research Advisory Committee (RAC) Meeting

Twenty-ninth Research Advisory Committee (RAC) of ICAR-CIRCOT, Mumbai was constituted by ICAR, New Delhi as follows:

The 29th RAC meeting of ICAR-CIRCOT, Mumbai was held during April 19-20, 2023 in hybrid mode. Dr. S. M. Ilyas presided over the meeting. All RAC Members, Heads of Divisions and scientist participated in the meeting.

At the outset, Dr. S. K. Shukla, Director, ICAR-CIRCOT welcomed the RAC chairman and members. He also presented major research achievements and other activities undertaken by the institute. He highlighted technologies developed, commercialized, skill development and commercial services undertaken and revenue generated by the institute. He mentioned about the impact of the technologies developed by the institute. He briefed about the future challenges in the research on post- harvest processing of cotton and priorities of institute for the coming years. Dr. V. G. Arude, Member Secretary, RAC, presented the Action Taken Report (ATR) on the proceedings of the 28th RAC.

Dr. S. M. Ilyas, Chairman, RAC in his opening remarks expressed his happiness on the progress made by the institute and congratulated all staff for upcoming centenary year of the institute. He mentioned that CIRCOT is a unique institute in ICAR, which is catering the needs of the farmers, traders and industry. He suggested to strengthen the CIRCOT Regional Units and decentralize the research activities to these units. He emphasized need for taking up more basic and strategic researches. He stressed on apportioning of time and resources for research according to their importance and priorities.

Dr. K. Narsaiah appreciated the institute for their excellent work and also suggested to reorient its research activities to meet the needs of the stakeholders. He suggested to focus on development of high value products out of cotton and its by-products and develop handheld instruments for quality testing of cotton. Calibration cotton developed by the institute should be exported and earn the foreign exchange. He pointed out the need for third party impact assessment of research achivements.

A number of leaflets on technologies developed and training programme organized by CIRCOT were also released on this occasion. A lecture on the topic ‘Lignocellulosic Biomass Conversion to Ethanol – the Current Status’ was delivered by Prof (Dr.) Gopal P. Agarwal.

Lecture by Prof. Gopal P. Agarwal, RAC Member

Dr. S. Sreenivasan opined that the scientists should take up more projects related to core areas and pointed out that the stress should be given on increasing the sale of calibration cotton. Dr. Adivarekar suggested that research culture has to be inculcated among the scientists and technical staff to realise better output. Dr S. P. Borkar observed that the few other organizations are working in more or less similar lines except in core area pre-ginning and ginning. Hence, more focused research need to be taken up in future.

Vote of thanks was proposed by Dr. V. G. Arude, RAC Member Secretary.