CSIR Aroma Mission: Transforming lives through S&T

#AGRICULTURE

✅A Special Webinar on the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) Aroma Mission was organized on the eve of India’s 75th Independence Day by the Ministry of Science & Technology.

✅Jammu & Kashmir pave the way for the ‘Purple Revolution’ of India by taking a lead in the lavender cultivation in almost all the 20 districts of the Union Territory.

✅CSIR’s Aroma Mission is generating new avenues of self-livelihood and entrepreneurship.

● Aroma Mission:

✅The CSIR Aroma Mission, launched in 2016, is envisaged to bring transformative change in the aroma sector through desired interventions.

✅It is aimed at the development of superior aroma crop varieties and their agro-technologies and assessment of their suitability for large-scale cultivation in specific agro-climatic regions.

✅The mission will promote the cultivation of aromatic crops for essential oils that are in great demand by the aroma industry.

✅It enables Indian farmers and the aroma industry to become global leaders in the production and export of some other essential oils on the pattern of menthol mint.

● Nodal agencies:

✅CSIR-Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (CSIR-CIMAP), Lucknow is the nodal laboratory for the mission.

✅The participating laboratories are CSIRInstitute of Himalayan Bioresource Technology (CSIR-IHBT), Palampur; CSIR-Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine (CSIR-IIIM), Jammu, etc.

● Objectives of the Mission:

✅Development of superior varieties and their agro-technologies and assessment of their suitability for specific agro-climatic regions

✅Promotion of cultivation and processing of aromatic crops, enhancing area under selected aromatic crops

✅Value-addition of aromatic crops

✅Skill development activities

✅Intellectual property generation, valuation, and management

✅Entrepreneurship development

✅Business development

● Achievements:

✅It has generated rural employment of farmers, spurred entrepreneurship in aromatic oils and other aromatic products manufacturing, and lowered the import of essential and aromatic oils.

✅With CSIR’s Aroma Mission, important medicinal and aromatic plants are being cultivated in 6,000 hectares of land.

✅The Mission has generated 10 to 12 lakh man-days of rural employment and more than 500 tonnes of essential oil worth Rs.60 crores was produced during the last two years.

● Purple Revolution:

✅Its aim is to support the domestic aromatic crop-based agro-economy by moving from imported aromatic oils to homegrown varieties.

✅Around 500 farmers from the Doda district have seen similar gains after switching from maize to the perennial flowering plant.

✅As the profits started flowing in, lavender replaced maize plants on more land around with lavender till the flowers covered almost ten times the area than a decade ago.

✅Main product is Lavender oil which sells for at least Rs. 10,000 per litre Lavender water, which separates from lavender oil, is used to make incense sticks.

● Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR):

✅The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) is an autonomous body established in 1942.

✅It is located in New Delhi.

✅CSIR known for its cutting edge R&D knowledge base in diverse S&T areas is a contemporary R&D organization.

✅CSIR has a dynamic network of 37 national laboratories, 39 outreach centres, 3 Innovation Complexes, and five units with a pan-India presence.

✅CSIR is funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology and it operates as an autonomous body through the Societies Registration Act, 1860.

● Organisation Structure :

✅President: Prime Minister of India (Ex-officio)

✅Vice President: Union Minister of Science and Technology (Ex-officio)

✅Governing Body: The Director-General is the head of the governing body.

✅The other ex-officio member is the finance secretary (expenditures).

✅Other members' terms are of three years.

SOURCE - PIB