115 stalls make food craft mela vibrant at PAU

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, October 12

A ‘Food Industry and Craft Mela’ was held at Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) today. With the festival season at its peak, the mela added more colours to the occassion.

In all, 115 stalls, displaying homemade food products, home decoration items, designer apparels and branded food items, had been put up by various departments of the PAU, Kirshi Vigyan Kendras, self-help groups and food industry.

Natural fruit juices, beverages, candies, preserves, snacks, pickles, chutneys, honey, bakery products, turmeric, dairy and meat products, designer apparels, craft material and home decors were the main attractions of the mela.

The mela has been jointly organised by the Department of Food Science and Technology, College of Agriculture, and the College of Home Science, PAU.

Inaugurating the mela, the Chief Guest, Dr RK Gupta, Director, Central Institute of Post-Harvest Engineering and Technology, Ludhiana, said: “It is an excellent mela. It provides an opportunity to the budding entrepreneurs to flourish their businesses, he said, while observing that they also get motivated.”

In his presidential remarks, Dr Baldev Singh Dhillon, Vice-Chancellor, PAU, said: “This mela aims at providing platform to the small and medium scale entrepreneurs as well as the farmers to exhibit their products and get acquainted with the food industry and incubation centre facilities available at the PAU.”

Dr Navtej Singh Bains, Director of Research, PAU, said the value addition has become critical for improving the income of farmer-entrepreneurs, and preventing gluts and price crashes. The university is developing crop varieties which are nutritionally superior and more amenable to processing, he added.

Dr JK Gulati, Dean, College of Home Science, disclosed that ex- and current students of College of Home Science, PAU, have exhibited their food products and decoration items, prepared after acquiring training from the PAU.