Conference on bio resources and economy underway at Nagaland University

Our Correspondent

Lumami, Sep. 19 (EMN): A three- day international conference on bio resources and economy got underway at Nagaland University (NU), Lumami, attended by eminent scientists and scholars from the country and around the world at I Ihoshe Kinimi Hall, on Monday.

The conference is organised by the Department of Botany, NU in collaboration with Nagaland Forest Management Project (NFMP), Department of Environmental Forest and Climate Change, Government of Nagaland, and SERB, Government of India.

Dr MD Aslam, former advisor, Department of Bio-Technology and consultant, DBT, North East Region- Bio Technology Programme Management Cell (NER-BPMC), was the keynote speaker at the inaugural programme.

The speaker dwelled on the subject ‘Himalayan Bioresource Mission towards Bioeconomy’ (Developed and implemented by IBSD-ILS Joint Centre).

Dr. Aslam stated that as per the India Bioeconomy Report 2022 of BIRAC— in India, bio-economy has reached over 80 billion US dollar in 2021, registering a 14.1% growth over 70.2 billion US dollar in 2020.

He added that India’s bioeconomy target has moved from 150 billion US dollar for 2025 to 300 billion US dollar for 2030.

Stating that the Himalayas are one of the global biodiversity hotspots, Dr. Aslam said with rich bioresources there is greater economic value, besides enormous potential for strengthening the bio-economy of the region.

He informed that the mission programme is designed to be translational and transformative to provide enormous opportunities to empower communities for efficient use and value-addition of bioresources to produce value-added products leading towards bioresource-based enterprises.

The mission programme has been developed in a consultative mode involving 200 scientists from nearly 50 research institutes and universities, he said.

As per the mission, Aslam said biotechnological interventions will be provided to enhance the rich bioresources for socioeconomic uplift of the entire Himalayan Region and to connect Eastern Himalayan Region (NER) with Western Himalayan Region.

The structure of the mission programme has five verticals – plant resources (including agri, horti resources, etc.), animal resources (including fisheries, wild life, etc.), microbial resources (including extremophiles, food microbiology, etc.), medicinal and aromatic plants (including phytopharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals, etc.) and bioresources for livelihood security / societal relevance programme and training and capacity building.

Former chancellors of Nagaland University, Prof. K Kannan and Prof. BK Konwar were the guests of honour.

Prof. Kannan underscored that the new NEP 2020 is quite revolutionary because the country is looking to become ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat.’

In this connection, he appealed to the various departments in the university to focus on how to generate money, instead of begging for grant.

Prof. Jagadish Kumar Patnaik, the vice-chancellor of NU, in his inaugural address, lamented that Nagaland University National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) and National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) accreditation grading are not satisfactory.

He observed that “it is not because of the limitation we have in NU but the negativity that was projected deliberately or otherwise by certain sections of the community within the state and our side the state.”

Chief Conservator of Forest, Supongnukshi, gave a briefing on Nagaland Forest Management Project (NFMP).