The CSIR-CIMAP (Council of Scientific and Industrial Research - Central Institute of Medical and Aromatic Plants) organised a convention on its premises here on Friday during which the beneficiaries of the Aroma Mission interacted with the new director general of the CSIR, Dr Nallathamby Kalaiselvi apart from other experts.
The Aroma Mission, launched in 2016 in India, aimed to increase the income of farmers through cultivation of aromatic plants.
Nearly 50 representatives of the beneficiary groups from all over India attended the event to interact with the HoDs at CIMAP. The group included members of tribal communities of Hyderabad and Assam, and also from farming villages in Odisha and Rajasthan.
Beneficiaries of the Aroma Mission programme have established natural perfume brands and also products which now have international reach. All these individuals had received training at CIMAP. Many had brought samples of their products as tokens of appreciation for the faculty here.
The director of CSIR-CIMAP, Dr Prabodh Kumar Trivedi said that that the main objective of organising this ‘scientist, entrepreneur, and farmer meet’ is to become an accessible medium to make the new research done in CSIR-CIMAP available to the public.
The DG also released a host of new products at the event - a newly developed variety of Mentha piperita ‘CIM-suras’, in which more than 70 percent menthol component is found; a room freshener herbal vaporizer ‘Aero-Clean’; and also released a booklet titled “Cultivation, Processing, and Marketing of Suitable Aromatic Crops for North-Eastern Regions of India”.
{{/usCountry}}The DG also released a host of new products at the event - a newly developed variety of Mentha piperita ‘CIM-suras’, in which more than 70 percent menthol component is found; a room freshener herbal vaporizer ‘Aero-Clean’; and also released a booklet titled “Cultivation, Processing, and Marketing of Suitable Aromatic Crops for North-Eastern Regions of India”.
{{/usCountry}}The director general said, she was immensely pleased to witness the impact the programme. “As the largest publicly funded organisation, we have been asked what is that we are giving back to society? I feel proud of hearing these stories now,” said Kalaiselvi.
She also said that the department is looking at implementing new programmes focusing on wealth from waste, integration of artificial intelligence and machine learning, as well as another mission on millets. Speaking to HT, the DG said, “Besides all the avenues that have been explored, which were beyond my imagination, perhaps we could also think about producing perfumes or essential oil pellets or tablets that are easily carried around.”