Karnal: 278 awarded degrees at NDRI University

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Karnal, March 15

The 20th convocation of the ICAR-National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI)-Deemed University was held at Dr D Sundanaresan Auditorium of the institute. Padma Bhushan awardee RS Paroda, chairman of Trust for Advancement of Agricultural Sciences (TAAS), former Secretary of DARE and ex-Director General, Indian Council of Agricultural Research and delivered the convocation address.

A total of 278 students were conferred degrees, of which 49 had pursued BTech, 127 master’s and 102 PhD. Presiding over the ceremony, NDRI Director and Vice-Chancellor Dheer Singh said the institute was using advanced cutting-edge technology for the multiplication of elite germplasm to produce superior breeds of cattle and buffaloes.

He called upon the students and exhorted them to become entrepreneurs rather than looking for jobs. Singh further said the institute was playing a pivotal role in the sphere of human resource development, providing BTech (dairy technology) degrees to the students, besides imparting MTech degrees in 14 subjects and PhD degrees in 14 subjects. He said the institute had filed 85 patents, of which 49 had been granted.

Chief guest Paroda was full of praise for the institute, which is providing excellent services in the dairy sector. Applauding the institute’s contribution, he added that after untiring efforts, the institute had managed to be on the top spot among all state agricultural universities for many years. Talking about nutritional security as an important challenge in the agriculture and dairy sectors, he believed that they had come a long way in the field of food security, but a lot was still required to be done in the sphere of nutritional security.

Paroda stressed on increasing the productivity of each animal, saying that that on an average, each animal produced 3 litres of milk, which needed to be enhanced to 10 litre per day as the dairy sector was required for economic security. He also emphasised the need to increase the number of dairy institutes.

KM Bujarbarua, former VC of Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat, and DVK Prakashrao, managing director of Prakash Foods and Feed Private Limited, Chennai, were conferred honorary degrees by the university. Under the doctoral programme 2022-23, the gold medal was awarded to Priyanka (dairy engineering), silver medal to Madhulatha C (agricultural extension education) and bronze to Elizabeth Thomas (dairy technology).