By OUR STAFF REPORTER
Dehradun, 10 Oct: UPES witnessed a gathering of experts for the ‘6th Agro-Horticulture Supply Chain Conference: AHSCC 2019’ at its Kandoli campus on 4-5 October. The two-day long conference, focusing primarily on ‘Food Security and Sustainable Supply Chain in Agriculture & Horticulture’, was organized under the aegis of ‘Department of Transport (DTM)’ & ‘Department of General Management (DGM)’ of the ‘School of Business, UPES’ (SOB) jointly. Dr MP Poonia, Vice Chairman, AICTE, was the Chief Guest at the event. The conference was actively supported by UPES SOB Alumni Nikhil Dhyani, Priyatosh, Rajiv Uniyal, Nikhlesh Nawani, Rasik Bhatia and Pranjul Tiwari. The ‘Conference Chair’ Dr Neeraj Anand – Head DTM, and the ‘Conference Co-Chair’, Dr Sumeet Gupta – Head DGM, welcomed Chief Guest Dr Poonia and the other eminent speakers, Prof Sukhpal Singh – CMA, IIM-A; Prof Narendra S Chaudhari – VC, UTU; Vijay Sardana – CDAC Member, SEBI; Suvit Trepassit – Secretary General, T-CORP, Thailand; Dr SK Sharma – GBPUA&T; Alok Shrivastava – Synergy Technofin; Entrepreneur Satya Prasad Nautiyal – Shikhar Food Products; and Dr PN Harikumar – Catholicate College, Pathanamthitta, Kerala; to the UPES Campus. Dr Neeraj Anand shared that, in all, 77 international & national research papers were shortlisted for the conference. Dr Githa S Heggde, Dean, SOB, highlighted the need for innovation and smart designs in agriculture & allied sectors. Delivering a talk on ‘Sustainable Agriculture, Food Security & Agro Supply Chains: An Innovative & Small Producer Perspective’, Prof Sukhpal Singh of IIM-A focused on improving farmers’ livelihoods and shared his insights on how the value chain & supply chain helped farmers enhance their daily incomes. Speaking on ‘Sustainable Development’, Dr MP Poonia began his session with a discussion on educational infrastructure. “Eighty percent of the education infrastructure in India remains unused,” he claimed. He said that AICTE welcomed students from colleges and universities to come up with innovative projects and connect with AICTE for funds. “AICTE has earmarked a sum of 10 lakhs each for such innovative projects as Project Money,” he disclosed. Prof Narendra S Chaudhari provided in-depth knowledge on the role of Information Technology in agriculture, adding that the networking of agriculture sectors was not limited within the boundaries of the nation but spread out globally. Alok Srivastava highlighted the significance of inventory control of perishables. Dr Vijay deliberated on ‘Techno Logical challenges for Agribusiness Supply Chains of India in Globalised Economy’. The conference also witnessed an informative panel discussion on ‘Parivartan: Path to sustainable Development’ that was moderated by Dr Anshuman Gupta. The prominent panelists, Dr NK Bishnoi, Dr PN Harikumar, Vijay Sardana and Dr Ajeet Kumar discussed the status of Agriculture in India, Problems Regarding the Purchasing Power of Farmers, Alternating Marketing, Live Mandi analysis and understanding the agro market. A Cultural Evening organised by ‘Club Sanskriti’ marked the end of the Day-1 events. Day-2 of the conference commenced with a talk by Suvit Teprassit from T- Corp Thailand who focused on rubber production in Thailand and the cargo transportation between Thailand & India. Dr SK Sharma’s talk focused on Food Security; SP Nautiyal shared the experiences of his entrepreneurial journey; Dr PN Harikumar’s address covered important issues in food security; Amit – Kisan Sabha, Yamunanagar, shared details of his start-up ‘Truck Suvidha’; and Vikramaditya spoke about his brand, ‘Jeo Amrit’ & start-up ‘Niramaya’. The Technical Sessions were chaired by Dr Sudhanshu Joshi – Doon University, Dr Lokendra Tyagi – Quantam University, Dr Mohanty – KIIT Bhubaneswar, Dr AK Jain and Dr PC Bahuguna. Various stalls for food products & handicraft items were setup as part of the ‘Agri Fest’. A departmental e-magazine LX – ‘Logistics Xpress’ was also released. The ‘LX Team’ comprised student coordinators Sharon Tess Jose, Prachi Priya, Krishna Vamsi Uppalapati, Anshuman Solanki, Siddharth Pandey, Subhabrata Saha and Suproteek Sinha. Announcing the winners jointly, Dr Neeraj and Dr Sumeet congratulated them on their achievements. In the ‘Poster Competition’, Yamijala Sudheer & Sakshi Tandon were joint ‘First’; Anmol Gupta ‘Second’, while Kajol Kaur & Ragini bagged the ‘Third’ position jointly. All awards in the ‘Paper Presentation’ Students Category were won by ‘Team UPES’, where Devkant Kala & Hitika Wadhwa came ‘First’; Shivani Swarog & Dr. Hiranmoy Roy – a joint ‘Second’ & Abhishek Sharma & Arjun Singh Negi won the ‘Third’ position jointly; while in the ‘Paper Presentation’ Faculty Category, Dr Gautam Srivastava, Dr Neeraj Anand & Dr Arvind Jain were ‘First’; Dhirendra Prajapati & Dr Ajay Jha, ‘Second’, and Dr Upananda Pani & Dr Hiranmoy Roy claimed the ‘Third’ position. The ‘Winners’ received their awards at the Valedictory Function. Dr Tarun Dhingra proposed the vote of thanks. Pradeep Chauhan, Dr TB Raju, Shantanu Trivedi were part of the organising team. Dr Rupesh Kumar and Dr Ajay Jha were Co-conveners of ‘AHSCC 2019’ along with the student organizers, Biswajeet Mishra, Shaik Yusuf Bajisaheb, Lakshay Aggarwal, Harshit Guleria and Krishna Vamsi Uppalapati.
