ICAR-CIRCOT orgnaized a webinar on “Solid Waste Management (Crop Residues)’ on 2nd March 2022

ICAR-CIRCOT Mumbai organized a webinar in hybrid mode on “Solid Waste Management (Crop Residues)” on 2nd March 2022 at 11 am, as 39th event under the celebration of Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav.

Dr. Sujata Saxena, Director in her inaugural address stressed on the importance of solid waste management both in urban and rural scenario. She highlighted the efforts being taken at the Institute to develop value added products from cotton plant stalks and aerobic / anaerobic technologies for value creation from this crop residue, supporting budding entrepreneurs and start-ups in establishing compost based technologies in line with Natural / Organic Farming Mission of the Indian Government.

The presentation on “Solid Waste Management (Crop Residues)” was delivered by Dr. R. H. Balasubramanya, Principal Scientist & Former Head, CBPD and Emeritus Scientist, ICAR-CIRCOT. In his lecture, he elaborated upon the need for solid waste composting in cities / towns and crop residue composting in the farming sector. Various technologies available for solid waste composting, their protocols, merits and demerits were dealt in depth by the speaker. Also, the current scenario of solid waste availability in various states and the managerial problems being faced by the regulatory authorities in handling them. He guided the young researchers and entrepreneurs to focus on developing novel composting technology, mimicking the digestive system of ruminant animals, so that the time required for composting process can be reduced and these can be easily adopted on a larger scale.

Dr. A.J. Shaikh, Former Director, ICAR-CIRCOT elaborated the cotton stalk based particle board production technology for the benefit of incubatees and entrepreneurs. He also emphasized the need to work on the logistics problems that are being faced by the particle board industries to collect and use the cotton stalks.

Dr. B.M. Khadi, Former Director, ICAR-CICR Nagpur interacted with the participants and encouraged them to identify the problems with the existing technologies and other managerial issues so that the particle board and composting technology could be made profitable.

Dr. Sarada Devi Anne, former Dean of Home Science from Acharya N G Ranga Agricultural University (ANGRAU), and currently an incubatee of CIRCOT-ABI, congratulated the work being done at the Institute and expressed her interest to get trained in the field of composting with reference to residual biomass left after extraction of natural dyes. Dr. A.K. Bharimalla, Senior Scientist and Chairman of the Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav Organising Committee welcomed the gathering. Dr. N. Vigneshwaran, Principal Scientist delivered the vote of thanks. More than 100 participants including scientific and technical staff of Head Quarters and regional units, scientists from other ICAR Institutes, KVKs and incubatees attended this webinar in online and offline mode.