OST Bureau

Bhubaneswar, Nov 2:

BPD2 (2)

In an effort to develop entrepreneurship in freshwater aquaculture and provide entrepreneurs a platform to acquire ideas, the Business Planning and Development (BPD) unit of Central Institute of Freshwater Aquaculture (CIFA) organised a workshop here on Saturday.

The workshop was attended by 150 participants, including about 40 entrepreneurs, officials from ICAR institutes, OUAT, State Universities, Utkal University and line departments, besides scientists from CIFA.

Dr. P Jayasankar, Director, CIFA and Project Leader of BPD, CIFA informed that the unit is intended to instill confidence in the entrepreneur on technologies and hand holding which will be carried on till this goal is achieved and the entire value chain operation is completed.

During the event, incubates ready to link into BPD, CIFA shared their views and expectations of running the business.

The meeting was followed by an exhibition where several commercialised and commercializable technologies from CIFA were showcased. A major attraction of the event was the display of products by incubates, who have shown an interest to link with CIFA and corporate like Reliance, Ruchi etc. who have extended their support to them in their endeavour.

The last session was an interaction of entrepreneurs with banks i.e. RBI, NABARD, SBI and UCO bank on the issues and possible ways to tackle the production problems with particular reference to credit and finance.

BPD was established to support entrepreneurs across India in their business. The BPD, CIFA has initiated links to develop 8 incubates on fish feed, plastic designs, aqua-tourism, aqua-school and promotion of producer’s organisation in the freshwater aquaculture sector.

Dr AP Srivastava, National Coordinator, National Agricultural Innovation Project (NAIP), Dr A K Behera, Chairman OPSL, Dr P Jayasankar, Director, CIFA and N K Barik, PI, BPD, CIFA were mong those who attended the workshop.