Southern States - Andhra Pradesh   

2.5-cr. grant for ANGRAU for biotechnology courses

By Our Staff Reporter

HYDERABAD Feb. 25. The Acharya N.G. Ranga Agricultural University (ANGRAU) has been given a grant of Rs. 2.5 crores by the AP-Netherlands Biotechnology project to strengthen infrastructure and teaching facilities for its post-graduate courses in agricultural and veterinary sciences.

Addressing a press conference on the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding here on Tuesday, I.V. Subba Rao, Vice-Chancellor, ANGRAU, said that this grant would help upgrade the teaching and laboratory facilities in these courses, which have already been started by the university.

These postgraduate courses in biotechnology have been formulated in consultation with experts drawn from many scientific and educational institutions and from industry. They are meant to fill the emerging gap in trained scientific manpower to take the benefits of biotechnology to the people, said Dr. Subba Rao.

He added that much more investment was needed for this course, but this grant would act as the seed money to attract other grants. A proposal is pending with the Department of Biotechnology of the Union Government and Dr. Subba Rao was hopeful that funds would be released soon.

The university is planning to start a School of Biotechnology by upgrading the current two courses and will house this in a Rs. 1.5 crore J. Raghotham Reddy AP-Netherlands Biotechnology building, which is to be constructed.

M.V. Rao, chairman, AP-Netherlands Biotechnology Project and former Vice-Chancellor of ANGRAU, said that this project is aimed at bringing the benefits of biotechnology to poor farmers in the rain-fed regions. As of now, the Dutch Government had given Rs. 43.5 crores of grants to 63 different projects in Mahabubnagar and Nalgonda districts.

Osmania University had received Rs. 3.1 crores, University of Hyderabad Rs. 2.2 crores, Sri Krishnadevaraya University Rs. 2.1 crores, Andhra University Rs. 44.4 lakhs, Kakatiya University Rs. 19 lakhs and Padmavathi Mahila University Rs. 11.5 lakhs for different projects, Dr. M.V. Rao informed. Eleven projects were on at ANGRAU itself.

Speaking on the research in Biotechnology in ANGRAU, Dr. Subba Rao said that the university scientists had developed a vaccine for blue tongue disease of sheep. The University was seeking a site at the Government's BT Park to commercialise this product. He also informed that they had appointed E.A. Siddiq as Honorary professor to guide Biotechnology initiatives in the university.

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