New Delhi: During his address to students at the 14th convocation ceremony, the Chief Guest Kaptan Singh Solanki, Governor, Haryana congratulated all the graduating students, awardees and medallists. He mentioned, “The onus is on the young generation to use their own innovative ideas to help the nation for more prosperity.” The Governor appreciated that such a large number of girl students are passing out from the discipline of Animal Science from NDRI.
Mr Solanki further said that Global trend in animal production also indicates a rapid and massive increase in consumption of livestock products. “The total projected demand of milk for about 1500 million populations by the year 2021-22 will be about 180 million tons. This demands an average incremental increase in milk production by 6 million tons per year, as against the average annual increase of 4.5 million tons during the last 10 years. Thus, ensuring availability of adequate feed and fodder will be crucial in the years to come if we want to sustain our current production level and want to achieve target. In-spite of our best efforts, food adulteration is becoming menace in our country. We must improve our quality standards of milk so that we can be competitive in the domestic and global market.” He lauded the efforts of NDRI in developing tools for ascertaining the quality of milk.
Dr Jimmy Smith, Director General, International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Kenya while delivering the Convocation Address congratulated all the students, who on successful completion of their studies have received hard earned degrees and distinctions for their academic excellence. He also called upon all the degree recipients not to be complacent, as having a degree from NDRI will put more responsibility on their shoulders.
Dr A K Srivastava, Director and Vice Chancellor, NDRI presented the progress report on the significant achievements made by the institute during the past year. He also congratulated all the awardees, teachers and parents. He informed that in the previous financial year, Institute has received grant worth Rs 110 crore through 71 extramural research projects. He said that Institute at present has 7 international collaborations with countries like New Zealand, Australia, United Kingdom, South Africa, Japan, Ireland and Brazil. He said that the Institute has transferred 15 technologies to various firms in 2015-16. He also informed that NDRI has started two new Masters Programmes in Food Science & Nutrition and Food Safety & Quality Assurance.
The other dignitaries who were present included Dr Rahman, Deputy Director General (Animal Science), ICAR; Dr N S Rathore, Deputy Director General (Education), ICAR; Dr R K Malik Joint Director (Research); Dr S K Kanawjia, Academic coordinator and Dr Sumit Arora, Controller of Examination. The students, who received their degrees expressed happiness for having studied at NDRI.
