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The Central Food Technological Research Institute (CFTRI) has achieved the distinction of being the only laboratory of the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) to get the Prime Minister’s fellowship award for the second year in succession.
This distinction has been made possible by two young women researchers of the CFTRI by bagging the prestigious award in the second year.
The fellowship is a public-private partnership (PPP) programme between the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) and the Government of India to promote industry-relevant research.
Although 100 fellowships are to be given out every year, over the last two years only over 60 have been awarded. The fellowship of Rs 50,000 per month is equally shared by the government and the industry partner.
The two women who have been awarded are Padma Shankaran, a young researcher at the CSIR-CFTRI’s Food Engineering Department for her doctoral research for 2013 and Nidhina M Bhaskaran, another doctoral student at CSIR-CFTRI for 2012.
The fellowship is a novel scheme launched a year ago to encourage young innovators to take up research relevant to industry. Awardees are selected by a core committee consisting of members from the academia as well as industry partners from the CII.
Among the 20 fellowships granted for life sciences research, CFTRI has the distinction of receiving it for two successive years and among the 38 laboratories under CSIR, it is the only one to have achieved the distinction.
Congratulating the awardees, director Ram Rajasekharan said, CFTRI’s young researchers receiving the awards were an indication of the utilitarian research pursued by the Institute.
Nidhina Bhaskaran’s project aims to obtain value-added products from the guar gum waste, while Padma Shankaran’s project is associated with General Mills Pvt Limited.
