Aizwal, April 21: The Chief Minister of Mizoram, Mri Lan Thanhawla inaugurated IBSD at Aizawl, the capital of Mizoram, in presence of Prof. Dinabandhu Sahoo, Director, IBSD at Nursery Veng, Aizawl. Institute of Bioresources & Sustainable Development (IBSD) is a National Institute under Department of Biotechnology, Government of India, New Delhi.
The mandate of IBSD is to bring socio-economic development of the North East Region of India through sustainable utilisation of bioresources. This year IBSD made big strides in new Research and Development Programmes, consolidated its entry into the state of Mizoram, besides already having established its activities in Manipur, Meghalaya and Sikkim. While inaugurating the state-of-the-art facilities, the Chief Minister lauded IBSD and said that IBSD has already taken several initiatives in North East and now its presence here will bring a lot of prosperity and development to the state of Mizoram which will boost the bio-economy the region.
Prof Dinabandhu Sahoo, Director, IBSD while addressing the gathering, said that presence of IBSD will bring together different departments, institutes and universities which will create a biotech hub in the region through technological interventions and develop technological packages. It will undertake human resources development for sustainable utilization of bio-resources for creation of jobs and economic development of the State of Mizoram.
With the establishment of IBSD Mizoram, the outreach activities in Mizoram to start with, would be centred around sustainable technologies for protected and open cultivation of important vegetable crops in farmers fields and IBSD Main Hub Mizoram.
Some of the Objectives are: Establishment of pilot Protected Cultivation facilities for production of high quality horticultural, agricultural and ornamental crops at IBSD Hub Mizoram along with open field demonstration of innovative technologies for the production of French bean, Birds Eye Chilli, Sticky pumpkin in open conditions at farmers’ level in Mizoram.
The units to serve as nucleus facility that would finally culminate into Centre of Excellence for protected cultivation, the units will produce quality of commercial value. It will also provide trainings on production, post-harvest management and marketing to the farmers and unemployed youth said Prof. Sahoo.
Prof. Sahoo said Mizoram has a huge potential to become a biotech hub in the country due to its rich biodiversity, climatic conditions and good air connectivity. IBSD will focus on value addition to Bamboo and other crops unique to Mizoram. It may be mentioned that IBSD has been promoting cherry blossom (Sakura) initiative in North East and organised India’s First Cherry Blossom Festival in North East in 2016. I am sure Mizoram will not only become a major tourism destination but a role model state in the country, said Prof. Sahoo.
