The two-day Training cum Demonstration programme for five newly developed machineries under National Innovation Foundation (NIF) was kicked off at Manipur Science and Technology Council (MASTEC) on Tuesday.
The programme has been jointly organised by NIF, Delhi and MASTEC under the aegis of the state department of Science and Technology.
The five machines include a Rice Puffing machine, Mini Dal machine, Organic Manure Making machine, Potato Harvester and Corn Shelling machine.
Speaking to the media, head of NIF North East Regional office Nitin Maurya highlighted that all the machines were innovated by farmers, mechanics and people without proper formal education.
“Under NIF department of dissemination, we searched and identified the innovations. NIF supported the innovators to incubate their ideas and also patent them,” he said.
He highlighted that the whole purpose of the dissemination department was to provide such machinery in different parts of the country. The five machineries are being used in other states as well, he added.
He highlighted that the programme was organised to acquaint farmers with the latest machinery. He also maintained that NIF periodically kept in touch with its state partners and tried to keep the regional requirements in check.
“We do this in order to incubate and develop technologies which would be best suited for the specific region,” he stated. He pointed out that NIF had provided financial support and technical assistance to various innovators from Manipur over the last 20 years.
“We have MoU with National Institute of Technology and MASTEC as well,” he added. He further stated that the NIF believed in the ‘land to lab to land’ model of innovation and appealed to all innovators in Manipur to get in touch with MASTEC or NIF fieldworkers to get the assistance and support of NIF.
MASTEC director L Minaketan and other officials of MASTEC were also present at the programme. Around 30 participants are taking part in the training programme.
