November 5
HT Correspondent
THE BANARAS Hindu University (BHU) will soon have a centre for food science and technology (FST) to start a master’s and doctoral programme in food science.
As per a Press release issued on Monday, an expert committee from the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Central Government, comprising chairman of farmers' right authority, professor of plant molecular biology at Delhi University, Dr JP Khurana and advisor, department of biotechnology visited BHU recently.
The DBT committee desired to have a world-class programme in BHU for promoting and strengthening this area of food science. The team members held discussions with director, Institute of Agricultural Sciences (IAS), Dr SR Singh, Emeritus Professor, Dr RM Singh and dean, faculty of IAS, Dr RP Singh.
They also discussed the salient features of the programme with faculty members of the Institute of Agricultural Sciences and Institute of Technology at BHU.
They approved an outlay of Rs 1,500 crore for phase 1 of the programme for the next five years with a focus on dairy products processing and vegetable technology.
The funds will be available for pilot plant facility for milk and vegetable processing, equipment, class rooms, laboratories, computerisation, networking, 11 new faculty positions (consisting of one professor, three readers and seven lecturers).
Important feature of the programmes will include fellowship to all M Sc and Ph D students. There will be two adjunct faculty from abroad and two adjunct faculty from India for guiding and developing the centre in its initial growth phase.
Funds will also be available for guest faculty from various academic institutions and industrial organisations.
Managing director Danisco Ingredients Ltd (a multinational from Denmark), Neil Prasad has offered to sponsor studies of two top ranking, students of this programme with training at their research and development centre in Singapore or Denmark.
In their deliberations with vice-chancellor of BHU Prof Panjab Singh, the committee members expressed a desire that the new centre should grow in the next five years into a world-class institution as they wanted it to be a unique institution in the eastern region of the country. Singh thanked the DBT in supporting this new programme.
Coordinator of the programme Dr Alok Jha said the BHU would launch the programme from July next year.