By OUR STAFF REPORTER
Pantnagar, 28 Oct: A patent for the development of Finger Millet Dehuller-cum-Pearler has been granted to Govind Ballabh Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar.
Scientist Dr Navin Chandra Shahi, and former scientists Dr Anupama Singh and Dr Khan Chand, Department of Post Harvest Process and Food Engineering, and Dr TP Singh, Department of Farm Machinery and Power Engineering, and MTech student Shivshankar Verma, Department of Post Harvest Process and Food Engineering, contributed to developing the above said equipment.
About 1.3 lakh metric tonnes of Finger millet is produced on 88,500 hectares in Uttarakhand. Finger millet contains vitamins and minerals in abundance, but its outer layers are composed of rough, fibrous, pigmented and waxy substances which are undesirable for edible purpose. It is necessary to remove the upper layer to make finger millet edible as whole-grain flour. Keeping these things in mind, the Finger Millet Dehuller-cum-Pearler was developed.
The Dehuller-cum-Pearler can be used for value addition to the products of finger millet and at the same time the producing farmers of Uttarakhand can get proper benefit from it. It took 2 years for the scientists to develop this machine, for which the Dean, College of Technology, and the Director, Research, played an important role. The Vice-Chancellor, Dr Manmohan Singh Chauhan, congratulated the scientists and student on developing the equipment. He also congratulated Dr JP Mishra, Intellectual Property Management Centre (IPMC) on getting this patent.
