Srinagar, 16 April: A two-day capacity building cum training program on design and manufacture of leather goods was organized at CSIR-Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine at its branch Srinagar under the Atal Incubation Centre (AIC-IIIM) and CSIR-Integrated Skill Initiative.
Dr. Zabeer Ahmed, Director, CSIR-IIIM, Jammu who is ex-officio Chairman of AIC-IIIM Bio-Innovation Foundation, inaugurated the programme in which more than 60 participants were provided knowledge and imparted training on the different avenues of income and livelihood generation in the domain of leather technology through production of value-added products.
The programme also included practical demonstration for manufacturing leather goods like pouches, sling bags etc. Experts from CSIR-Central Leather Research Institute (CLRI) comprising of Mr. V. Karthik, Senior Scientist and Mr. Amit Kumar Prajapati, Technical Officer, delivered lectures and conducted hands-on sessions during the two-day event.
While speaking on the occasion, Director CSIR-IIIM informed that the leather training programme is a part of AIC-IIIM’s Skill Development initiative in the area of Leather technology which would be pivotal to support the local economy and generate livelihoods for many others. He further said that the mandate of Atal Incubation Centre has been envisioned in the areas like leather training, medicinal mushroom cultivation, value addition of essential oils, fermentation-based products etc., keeping in view the richness of natural resources and available expertise, so as to provide ideal incubation support to the local budding innovators.
Er. Abdul Rahim, Head CSIR-IIIM (Br.) Srinagar and Vice Chairman, AIC-IIIM Bio-innovation Foundation advised the local entrepreneurs to take full advantage of the various funding opportunities offered by the Govt. of India for scaling up their startups.
Dr. Syed Muzamil Ahmad, Principal Investigator, Atal Incubation Centre, in his welcome address, informed that a series of similar training programs in other focus areas like medicinal mushrooms and value addition of essential oils have been planned and will be conducted subsequently. The proceedings of the programme and the vote of thanks to the dignitaries and the participants was presented by Syed Abdul Basit Andrabi, Coordinator AIC-IIIM.
