The inauguration of International Visiting Professor Programme at CPMB&B, TNAU, Coimbatore sponsored by ICAR-NAHEP Institutional Development Programme (IDP) was organized on August 14, 2023 at CPMB&B. Senthil Subramanian, Professor and Associate Dean, South Dakota State University, USA will be handling classes from August 14 to September 1, 2023 at CPMB&B, TNAU, Coimbatore.
This programme is aimed to mentor the Undergraduate students by an internationally acclaimed faculty to develop students’ global exposure. The B.Tech (Biotech) 97 undergraduate students of II and III year will be participating in this programme.
During the inauguration, Vice-Chancellor of TNAU, Dr.V.Geethalakshmi explained that this IDP programme has been designed to impart knowledge from throughout the world. This is funded by the World-bank and ICAR to the State Agricultural Universities for capacity building. For this training Rs.25 crores had been sanctioned to send 50 undergraduate students to International Universities in the USA, Canada and Netherlands. Appreciating the success of the programme implemented by TNAU, the Tamil Nadu Government also has sanctioned an additional funding of Rs.5 crores.
Using this funding additional faculties from USA, Japan and Europe will be teaching in TNAU next month, she said. The Vice-Chancellor advised the students to allocate more time for hands-on-training experience and be independent. There are lot of opportunities for the students to be self-reliant and be an entrepreneur. For example, the cost of production of 45kg bag of prilled urea is Rs.2200, but the government is giving it to the farmers at a subsidized rate of Rs.242. So, there is a lot of scope to develop nano-urea and nano-based materials.
S.Senthil, Professor, USA said in his speech that this was a giving-back moment to the alma-mater. TNAU is one of the best world-class universities and NDSU, USA is keen to build collaborative relationship with TNAU. He suggested that there is a US$13 billion market for crop-specific microbial products and encouraged the students to have an inquisitive mind.
Initially, N.Senthil, Director (CPMB) and Dean (SPGS) welcomed the gathering. N.VenkatesaPalanichami, Dean (Agri) and E.Somasundaram, Director (ABD) felicitated the participants. E.Kokiladevi, Professor & Head, Department of Plant Biotechnology proposed a vote of thanks.
