ICAR-CRIJAF Bags Prestigious “National Societal Innovation Award 2020”

A multidisciplinary team of scientists of ICAR – Central Research Institute for Jute and Allied Fibres, Barrackpore has bagged the prestigious National Societal Innovation Award - 2020 founded by National Research Development Corporation under the Department of Science and Technology, Ministry of Science & Technology, Govt. of India, New Delhi for its contribution in the development of, "Innovation in jute retting technology through microbial consortium ‘CRIJAF SONA’ for high quality fibre".

Jute- The Eco-friendly Fibre

The bio-degradable, eco-friendly jute fibre provides livelihood support to approximately 5 million farm families directly or indirectly. The yield and quality of jute fibre is dependent on post-harvest, water-steeped extraction process called "retting", which is a microbe dependent process. Therefore, the efficiency of the retting process is crucially dependent on efficiency and abundance of microbes present in the retting water. The present innovation related to the development of first commercial talc-based microbial formulation called “CRIJAF SONA” for faster retting of jute & mesta.

CRIJAF SONA- For Fatser Retting of Jute & Mesta

The novel microbial strains of this microbial formulation possess unique pectin and hemicellulose degrading properties without any breakdown of cellulose. This microbial formulation “CRIJAF SONA” reduces the jute retting duration by 6-7 days, improves fibre yield by 8 to 10% and fibre quality by 2 to 3 grades, reduces labour and water requirements by about 35% and increases farmers’ income by Rs. 12000-15000 per hectare.

The "CRIJAF SONA" technology has been commercialized, and adopted by 5.5 lakh farmers in the past six years. The Ministry of Textiles, Govt. of India also adopted the technology on large scale in all the jute and mesta growing states of the country. Thus, this indigenously developed technology can boost economy of jute farmers in India and other jute growing countries by providing high quality jute fibre which can be used to produce jute based diversified products.

The Team Behind CRIJAF SONA:

The National Societal Innovation Award 2020 consists of cash prize of Rs. three lakh, certificate and citation. The team of scientists involved in development and promotion of the technology who bagged this award are Dr. Bijan Majumdar, Dr. Amit Ranjan Saha, Ms. Suparna Das, Dr. Subhojit Datta, Dr. Dipnarayan Saha, Ms. Lipi Chattopadhyay, Dr. Suniti Kumar Jha and Dr. Gouranga Kar.

Dr. Gouranga Kar, Director, ICAR-CRIJAF congratulated the investigating team and expressed that this innovative technology has revolutionized the retting process of jute and will play vital role in the post-harvest process to obtain the high grade, export quality jute fibre by the farmers. This technology can improve fibre quality to make it internationally competitive. The concerted research effort of the multidisciplinary team of scientists could make it possible. He expressed that dedicated and team effort by the scientists will earn many such laurels for the institute in the future.