A two-day meeting to finalize more than Rs 500 crore of mega project on health foods begins at CIPHET
Ludhiana, February 2: With increasing awareness among the consumers and to tackle the problem of undernourishment, health food segment is going to gain importance, this was revealed by Indian Council of Medical Research’s (ICMR) Deputy Director General (DDG) Dr G.S Tuteja, during the inaugural session of two day partners meeting to finalize mega project on health foods at the Central Institute of Post Harvest Engineering and Technology (CIPHET). Scientists from different institutes of country are taking part in the meeting.
Notably, ICAR and ICMR is going to submit mega project of Rs 500 crore for research and development of health foods to planning commission of India for funding. The meeting was called with objective to get research proposals from different institutes across the country and evaluating their viability. “We have already done most of the background work for submission of proposal with help of CIPHET,” said Dr Tuteja, adding that he was quite optimistic of getting the project approved from the planning commission. “Health food could be targeted to particular requirements like helping in cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, less allergic or general health,” he added, stressing on its importance.
Saying that purpose of the meeting is to conceptualize the mega project by incorporating various workable project, Dr Tuteja, said that health food segment is likely to grow very fast in coming years. Emphasizing that focus should be on product development in the projects, Additional Director General (ICAR), Dr K.K Singh said that scientists should first identify the problem and then should focus on the specific scientific solutions.
Giving overview of the project on health food, Director CIPHET, Dr R.K Gupta, elaborated on the role to be played their institute. Project Coordinator (PHT) Dr S.K Nanda, Head Transfer of Technology Division Dr Deepak Raj Rai, Head AS&EC Division Dr S.N Jha and other senior members of faculty were also present on the occasion. The major focus of the meeting would be on development of process and technologies for production of health foods from plant and animals source for targeted undernourished population, to develop process and technologies for production of formulated functional foods using bioactive ingredients, nutraceuticals based health foods, clinical testing for the safety of developed health foods and formulation of defined regulatory framework for health foods in India.
