SUTRA-PIC | 18 Feb 2020

Why in News

Recently, the Ministry of Science and Technology has launched the “Scientific Utilization through Research Augmentation-Prime Products from Indigenous Cows” (SUTRA-PIC India).

• It is one of the research programmes into indigenous cattle announced during the 2019-20 Union Budget, which aims to develop products as well as improve the genetic quality of indigenous cattle breeds.

Key Points

• It is a collaborative effort of the Department of Biotechnology, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the Ministry for AYUSH (Ayurveda, Unani, Siddha, Homoeopathy) and the Indian Council of Medical Research.
• The department of the Science for Equity, Empowerment and Development (SEED), under the Ministry of Science and Technology, is in charge of the programme.
  
  • It can be noted that SEED had also constituted a National Steering Committee to initiate a National Programme on “Scientific Validation and Research on Panchagavya” (SVAROP) in 2017.
• The programme consists of five themes:
  
  • Uniqueness of Indigenous Cows,
  • Prime-products from Indigenous Cows for Medicine and Health,
  • Prime-products from Indigenous Cows for Agricultural Applications,
  • Prime-products from Indigenous Cows for Food and Nutrition,
  • Prime-products from indigenous cows-based utility items.
• The above themes aim to perform:
  
  • Scientific research on the complete characterisation of milk and milk products derived from Indian indigenous cows.
  • Scientific research on nutritional and therapeutic properties of curd and ghee prepared from indigenous breeds of cows by traditional methods.
  • Development of standards for traditionally processed dairy products of Indian-origin cows, etc.

Source: TH