Bhubaneswar: The Keonjhar administration has signed an agreement with Thiruvananthapuram based ICAR-Central Tuber Crops Research Institute (CTCRI) to develop and scale customized Rainbow Diet food matrices for meeting the nutrition need of children’s of the district.
The agreement was respectively signed by Dr. Soumendra Narayan Panigrahi, Deputy Director of Horticulture, Keonjhar & Dr. G. Byju, Director, ICAR-CTCRI at a function held at Zilla Parishad conference hall in presence of District Collector Ashish Thakare.
The four-year project sanctioned to CTCRI is aimed at implementing a value chain improvement strategy including baseline malnutrition assessment, production of nutritionally enriched tubers, millets and other locally preferred food crops and development of nutriseed systems, the Keonjhar admin said.
On the agreement signing, the Keonjhar Collector said that through this unique initiative the district will definitely boost its agriculture production and meet the nutrition need. Specifically, the Tribal population of the district will be benefitted from this, he added.
Success of such a concept at small scale in north-east India and at Attapadi in Kerala has encouraged CTCRI to scale up the concept known as ‘Rainbow Diet Campaign’, initially at district level and later on state-wide and national levels, said Dr. G. Byju.
Dr. PS Sivakumar and Dr. M Nedunchezhiyan, the principal investigators of the project attended the program besides scientists from ICAR-CTCRI Regional Station, KIIT & NISER, Bhubaneswar. Senior officials from the District Administration and DMF were also present.