| Sanction Date: | 15.12.2025 | |||
| Project Category | Category I | |||
| Year | 2025-2026 | |||
| Project Duration | 3 Years | |||
| BTA : | LOEG | |||
| Project Site/ State/ Districts/ Villages Covered: |
East Siang (28.07° N, 95.33° E), Upper Siang (28.75° N, 95.33° E), and Lower Dibang Valley (28.18° N, 95.85° E), Arunachal Pradesh |
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| Organization/ Implementation Agency: | Central Agricultural University, College of Horticulture and Forestry, Pasighat, Arunachal Pradesh | |||
| Project Partners: | S.No. | Name | ||
| 1. | Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Pasighat- 791102, East Siang, Arunachal Pradesh | |||
| Lead Proponent: | Dr. Pushpendra Kumar |
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| Project Brief Description: | Arunachal Pradesh, with its rich agrobiodiversity and traditional food heritage, is home to three Geographical Indication (GI) tagged agri-horticultural products: Arunachal Orange, Adi Kekir (Ginger) and Angnyat/Adlay Millet. These crops hold immense potential for nutritional enrichment, functional food innovation and rural enterprise development. However, despite their uniqueness, they remain underexploited due to high post-harvest losses, poor storage and processing infrastructure and weak market linkages. The proposed project seeks to transform these GI-tagged crops into value-added functional food products through scientific processing, shelf-life enhancement and branding. Emphasis will be placed on blending traditional knowledge with modern food technologies to develop innovative products such as ginger-based health drinks, millet snacks and orange peel confections. These interventions aim to reduce crop wastage, improve food safety and tap into the growing demand for clean-label, plant-based functional foods. Importantly, the project will empower tribal women and youth by building skills in post-harvest processing, product development and entrepreneurship. By creating community-level enterprises and facilitating access to training, tools and markets, the initiative will promote sustainable livelihoods and economic inclusion in border and tribal districts. Through localized innovation and technology dissemination, the project will serve as a replicable model for livelihood-led value addition of GI-tagged crops in the Indian Himalayan Region. | |||
| Beneficiaries/ Stakeholders: |
• Tribal women and youth involved in farming and traditional food preparation in East Siang, Upper Siang and Lower Dibang Valley districts. |
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| Activity Chart (For 3 years) | ||||
| Total Grants (in Rs.) | Rs. 11,500,000/- (Rupees One Crore Fifteen Lakh Only) | |||
| Project Objectives | Quantifiable Deliverables | Monitoring Indicators |
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• To develop and optimize ready-to-use functional products derived from GI-tagged Crops viz. Adi Kekir Ginger, Arunachal orange and Tanyak Millet by incorporating both traditional and innovative approaches. • To evaluate the quality, safety and shelf life of the developed products through detailed physico-chemical, microbiological and sensory analyses. • To empower rural women and youth by providing skill-based training and hands-on demonstrations for the commercialization of developed technologies and products. |
• Optimized functional food products developed from Adi Kekir Ginger, Arunachal Orange, and Tanyak Millet • Quality, safety, and shelf-life assessment reports. • Standardized SOPs, packaging guidelines, and product commercialization manuals. • Skill-based training modules and hands-on demonstrations for rural women and youth on product preparation, hygiene, branding, and entrepreneurship. |
• Monitoring in comparison to the baseline information/ data to be provided by the proponent: • No. of functional products developed and optimized. • Product quality and shelf-life benchmarks achieved (as per FSSAI/comparable norms). • No. of women and youth trained; training hours delivered. • Percentage of trainees adopting or commercializing products. • Improvement in household income or local enterprise activity. • No. of research papers, technical reports, and policy documents published. |
| S.No. | No. of Sanctioned Post | Salary (Sanctioned) |
| 1. | 01 SRF | @ Rs.42,000/- + 10% HRA |
| 2. | 01 JRF | @ Rs.37,000/- + 10% HRA |
| 3. | Lab Assistant | @ Rs.20,000/- |
| S.No. | Name of Equipment (Sanctioned) | Use of Equipment/ Details | Cost (in INR) |
| 1. | 1 UV-Vis Spectrophotometer @₹5,00,000/-, 1 Laptop @₹1,00,000/-, 1 Digital Camera/ DSLR @₹50,000/-, 1 Tablet Device @₹50,000/-, 1 Texture Analyser/ Food Rheometer Typical measurements include @₹8,00,000/- | 15,00,000/- |
