Naveen Verma, secretary, Ministry of Development of North East Region, announced on Sunday that the technology mall for the Northeast would be set up at CSIR-North East Institute of Science and Technology (NEIST).
Addressing the 57th foundation day of CSIR-NEIST here, Verma said DoNER was now dedicating itself to ensure that technology reached the end user.
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Verma said that till recently all the ministries and departments were functioning in silos, each doing its own work instead of working as a team and the apathy of user ministries in taking to new ideas had resulted in technology not reaching the end user.
“The problem is that farmers and entrepreneurs do not know what the latest innovations in science and technologies are and therefore end up using outdated methods. We now plan to keep all the technologies in one place and as Jorhat is centrally located in the Northeast, this would be the best place to house all technologies produced in the region. DoNER has approved NEIST as the place to set up the facility which would be something like a technology mall,” Verma said.
Explaining the concept, director of NEIST, D Ramaiah said preference would be on technology for farmers and for technology needed in setting up of enterprises in the MSME sector.
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Ramaiah further said that there were also plans for training and an incubation period in which an entrepreneur could hire the technology on an hourly basis which would include paying for recurring costs like electricity and water and something more as per CSIR guidelines.
After making a profit, the entrepreneur could buy the technology. Hostels for this purpose would also be set up.
Ramaiah further said that simultaneously with the setting up of the facility here, another center would be set up at Nagaland Agriculture College, Medziphema.
Smaller centres in other Northeast states would also be set up with display of technology specific to that state.
Verma further spoke about the STINER (Science and Technology Intervention for North East Region) programme launched by DoNER in September, last year.
This programme envisages extension services to farmers and entrepreneurs through science and technology interventions.
Citing an example NEIST could intervene in this regard, Verma said that the members of Mizo Farmers Union who had met him yesterday here had told him that they had produced huge quantities of ginger with the aid of NEIST technology but were not being able to sell them as the location was remote and transportation cost was high as a result of which they would be discontinuing the cultivation of ginger.
Admitting that transportation was a problem in the Northeast due to difficult terrain and remote locations, Verma said that in this regard NEIST could intervene with the by coming up with a process to powder the ginger and store it or make small portable cold storages which could be transported to other places as was being done in Estonia.
Verma had om Saturday inaugurated the facility for making bricks from silt of the Brahmaputra river which was eco-friendly as the technology used did not require heating but only compressing.
He expressed his happiness that NEIST was also mini hydroelectric plants which could place in the Brahmaputra to generate power.