ICAR- Central Institute for Women in Agriculture had organised CIWA-Industry-Stakeholders Interface-2024 on 6th March 2024 to provide a convergence platform for promoting Women Friendly Technologies and Agri-preneurship among farm women and industries. The major objective of the Interface was to promote Public-Private Partnerships and provide a platform to showcase women friendly technologies to clients/ technology partners and to receive the feedback from the entrepreneurs for providing the research with a definite direction for the positive outcome. Honourable Dr. Mridula Devi, Director, ICAR-CIWA, extended a warm welcome to all the stakeholders from different organisations of Govt. & NGOs, FPOs and emphasized upon importance of industry meet, agri-preneurship and government policies. The Director also emphasized on different drudgery reducing technologies developed by ICAR-CIWA and their usefulness for farmer community. Invited speaker Mr. Sanjay Patel, Designated Officer, FSSAI enlightened on the importance of FSSAI certification, and detail procedure for applying FSSAI certification, both in offline and online mode in a simplified manner for the benefit of gathered women entrepreneurs. He also highlighted on FoSTaC training (Food Safety Training and Certification), important for manufacturing food products and also very useful for small women entrepreneurs and women led FPOs.
Mr. Manas Kumar Das, Charted Accountant and GST expert drew attention on importance of GST registration for business carried out by women entrepreneurs. He also discussed about advantages of having GST number like; formation of common national market, ease of doing business, stopping corruption and tax leakages, reduce number of compliances etc. Dr. Anant Sarkar showcased successful technologies with commercial potential of various ICAR institutes and SAUs for their promotion and urged the industry personnel for their commercialization. A successful women entrepreneur, shared her success story regarding establishing a profitable enterprise. There was also a panel discussion regarding various issues and challenges, women entrepreneurship and promotion of Women Friendly Technologies. A WhatsApp group was also created to facilitate continued interaction and sharing of knowledge between the stakeholders. The programme was attended by a significant number of Industry personnel, Women FPO leaders, Entrepreneurs and progressive farm women from different districts of Odisha. The programme was successfully co-ordinated by Er. Chaitrali S. Mhatre (Convenor) and Dr. Tanuja S (Co-convenor),ICAR-CIWA, Bhubaneswar.
Read more: https://icar-ciwa.org.in/index.php/fortabevents/668-ciwa-stak-meet
