LUDHIANA: The stall of Central Institute of Post Harvest Engineering and Technology (CIPHET), Ludhiana, is drawing a huge response in the India International Trade Fair (IITF) 2009 going on at Pargati Maidan, New Delhi, for its technologies developed in food Processing.

This time theme of Indian Council of Agricultural Research, is “More Crop Per Drop” aiming to encourage farmers to save water.        

Among other technologies, Maize Cob Sheller  (MCS) is a center of attraction. This hand-operated device can separate maize more efficiently without involving much of human effort.

It has efficiency of shelling 50 to 60 kg maize per hour. MCS has been designed by CIPHET in such a manner that any size of maize could get fit into it.

CIPHET is also displaying both Pomegranate Aril Extractor (PME) hand held and mechanically operated. While hand held PME is useful for separating pomegranate at small scale, mechanically PME is useful for extracting arils at commercial scale. Any size and variety of pomegranate could be processed with extraction capacity of 90 to 94 percent. Mechanical damage to arils is reported as less as 3 to 4 percent during processing.

Similarly, Banana Cob Cutter is also on the display. This is simple but effective device to separate bananas than cutting with help of knife. Large number of bananas could be separated at much lesser time and this could be specially useful for people engaged in fruit business.

Nilesh Gaikwad, Scientist from CIPHET,said that large number of entrepreneurs had shown interest in technologies developed by CIPHET. Director CIPHET Dr R.T Patil and Head Transfer of Technology Division CIPHET Dr Deepak Raj Rai said that they were providing all possible information to visitors at their stall.

Besides CIPHET, various other institutes of  ICAR also exhibiting their technologies/products at ICAR paviion at Pargati Madan. IITF 2009 would continue till November 27.