Proceedings of midterm review meeting of NICRA held at IIHR, Bengaluru on 22.08.2016

The review meeting of NICRA under the Strategic Research Component was held at IIHR, Bengaluru on 22.08.2016  under chairmanship of  Dr. M.R. Dinesh,  Director, ICAR-IIHR, Bengaluru  and in the presence of Dr. M. Prabhakar,  PI, NICRA, ICAR-CRIDA, Hyderabad. The meeting was attended by Drs M.S. Rao, , CO-PI NICRA,  M Vanaja,  S. K. Yadav, Er CVK  NageswarRao from ICAR-CRIDA, Hyderabad and scientists of IIHR associated with NICRA project. The agenda of the meeting was to review the technical progress of research work carried out under NICRA at IIHR, Bengaluru.The Director in his remarks emphasized on the compilation of Climate Resilient Technologies (CRTs) in each crop and scope for up scaling of the same in future program. Possibility to have institulaisation of NICRA programme  and also linking up the technical programme with the institute programme. The technology demonstration component should go beyond Karnataka to have the national impact

 

 

Dr. M. Prabhakar, briefed about the importance of the project and informed the house that the existing phase of NICRA project is coming to completion by March, 2017. He emphasized the need to come out with some products/technologies as the outcome of the project as sizable amount time and resources has been spent till now. The shape of the project in the next phase will be deliberated and decided after a series of meetings with stakeholders and experts. Quantification of mitigation potentials of the technologies developed need to be undertaken and documented. Dr. M. S.  Rao, Co-PI, NICRA, stressed the need for crystallization of the results in the project as a sizable quantity of  work has been done in the project.He further mentioned that the documentation of CRTs developed under NICRA should to be done before the project is evaluated by third party/external agency and continuity of the programme would be based on output of the programme till date.

 

Dr. R.M. Bhatt, PI, NICRA, ICAR-IIHR, has presented the over all progress of the work done at IIHR since the inception of the project. The different COPIs presented the work done under various activities. Dr RM Bhatt, PI, NICRA at IIHR, mentioned about the various activities of NICRA being covered at the institute. Four presentations were made on i. Evaluation of horticultural crops for tolerance to climate stresses and genetic enhancement of tolerance, ii. Adaptation and mitigation through conservation Horticulture, iii. Pest dynamics and surveillance in relation to climate change, iv. Climate-Resilient Technology (CRT). A detailed interactive session was organized between CRIDA team and scientists of the institute. All other associates of NICRA briefed on the activities undertaken by them.

 

After the presentation of the research achievements the review team  visited the facilities developed under NICRA at IIHR, Bengaluru. The team suggested to complete the pending infrastructure work at the earliest. Few suggestions were rendered by the CRIDA team on different technical components of Phenomics, FATE and CTGC facilities.

 

The following action points and issues were emerged. 

1. Explore possibility to enter AMC for Phenomics, FATE and CTGC facilities so that the maintenance of the facilities will be easy.
2. The suggestions and recommendations given during earlier review meetings including Annual Review meeting should be considered along with clear cut deliverables may be mentioned in the future presentations.
3. More emphasis may be given on product-oriented research/output, which can make considerable impact in adaptation and mitigation of climate change in horticulture sector in the country.
4. As evaluation of NICRA project is done by Third Party and main lead centre, it is suggested to compile and come out with salient outputs in the form of technical bulletins, folders, fliers etc.
5. Compilation of outputs should be done crop wise than theme wise as it will be useful for reference by the users
6. The Technology demonstration component need to be reviewed at institute level to bring more clarity and focus.
7. Quantification of mitigation potential of some of technologies developed in the project should be attempted

 

The meeting ended with vote of thanks to the Chair.