The Central Institute of Fisheries Technology (CIFT), under the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), has developed solar hybrid dryers designed to improve the hygiene and quality of dry fish and ensure round-the-year operations.
Traditional methods
The dryers have been developed with dry fish business suffering a setback in the context of poor hygiene in traditional fish drying practices such as salting and open sun drying. Videos circulating in social media on faulty and unhygienic dry fish processing in the coastal belt have been a serious setback for the business, says a CIFT press release here.
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The solar hybrid dryers from CIFT is an alternative to the tradition-bound sunlight-dependent dry fish processing. The solar dryers are popularised with financial assistance given by the Hyderabad-based National Fisheries Development Board.
CIFT is conducting training programmes to attract entrepreneurs from the State.
Two training programmes were attended by 50 participants. The training for the third batch is scheduled from October 10 to 12, adds the release.
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The training programme is being conducted under the guidance of CIFT director C.N. Ravishankar, and the course is mandated with hands-on sessions on pre-processing, drying, quality evaluation and packaging of dried fish. The participants are also provided acquaintance with agri-business incubation process of CIFT developed technologies. Manoj Samuel, head, engineering division, CIFT is coordinating the programme.