The Institute of Bio-resources and Sustainable Development (IBSD), a central institute in Manipur began developing a bio-resource hub, one of its kind in the entire north-eastern region at its bio-resources park at this picturesque Haraorou foothill village, around 16 km north of Imphal.
“Earlier tissue cultured plants were imported from places like Bangalore and Hyderabad. Now it will be done here as everything will go from here once the ongoing infrastructure developments are completed,” said the Director Dr Dinabandhu Sahoo, a professor of the Botany department who has the unique distinction of travelling seven continents within a span of 18 months.
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“The bio-resources available here can be airlifted directly through our helipad. So it will be self-sufficient facility which you will not find in any parts of the region where you have the water harvest, fish culture, tissue culture, training for farmers etc at one single place,” Dr Dinabandhu Sahoo added.
Spreading across the foothill fields measuring around 40 acre, the IBSD team under the supervision of its energetic Director, has initiated to convert the park into a sustainable development facility hub considering the public requirement.
On Wednesday, Director Prof Sahoo the man behind the introduction of India’s first cherry blossom festival in the North-east in November 2016, accompanied by the scientists of the institute laid the foundation stone for a high-tech tissue culture and hardening facilities besides opening a fish hatchery complex having portable facilities to produce five million fish sponges annually inside the park.
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“This will be the first commercial tissue culture and hardening facility in the entire north-eastern region as it plans to supply a minimum of eight lakhs saplings of horticulture plants per year at a highly subsidized rate to the farmers and other people,” said Prof Sahoo who developed world’s first carbon capture vehicle.
“This is the real sustainable development model created by the institute park where a total of 250 farmers were trained under bio-resources enterprise development only on one orchid (Dendrobium) species,” he further added.
The IBSD team has already started interaction with the farmers and do necessary works based on their requirements in some sectors in the last three years wherein it also signed Memorandum of Understanding with many well-known institutions including Nakdonggang National Institute of Biological Resources of South Korea, the Belgium-based Vision on Technology, Meghalaya Government, Institute of Life Science Bhubaneswar and the likes for joint research on the exploration and use of bio-resources. Last month, it introduced first ever Floating Research Laboratory in Loktak Lake in Manipur, the largest freshwater lake in the North-east.