Temperature 21.05 C New Delhi, IN
Friday, March 29, 2024
No Image

Stakeholders meet on the National Certification System for Tissue Culture Raised Plants

NEW DELHI: The certification agency for Tissue Culture Plants on Monday organized a stakeholders meet on the National Certification System for Tissue Culture Raised Plants (NCS-TCP). Biotech Consortuim India Limited (BCIL) highlighted the benefits of certification. The Certification System was established in 2006 under the Seeds Act 1966 with the aim of making available high quality disease free tissue culture plants.

The NCS-TCP has shown tremendous growth in the last 10 years and 96 companies, 5 test laboratories and two referral centres have been ascribed under the system. Some  80 million tissue culture plants have been certified under the system. Mr.S. Chowdhary,Minister of State , Science and Technology, speaking at the meet said India is an agrarian economy and keeping this in mind we need to streamline our expertise in the field of biotechnology and innovation to improve our agriculture. He praised d the work of scientists in this field.

Plant tissue culture has emerged as an important biotechnology tool  to multiply elite varieties of high quality, disease free and high yielding plants rapidly in the laboratory irrespective of the season of the year. In India there are some  200 commercial tissue culture companies with gross installed production capacity of about 500 million plantlets a year. Banana, potato, sugarcane, apple, pineapple,  strawberry, gerbera, anthurium,llillium, orchids, bamboo, date palm, teak and pomegranates are some of the major plants tissue cultured in India.

Dr. K.Vijay Raghavn, Secretary Department of Biotechnology,  on this occasion said “Our purpose is to improve the lives of the farmers through high quality crops. Through NCS-TCP we are aiming to improve our agriculture production to ensure food security in the country”.The event was attended by farmers from different states, representatives of some 80 Tissue Culture Companies, and government officials of the State Horticulture Departments.

Mr. S.K. Pattanayak Secretary, Department of Agriculture, Cooperation and Farmers Welfare, Government of India said  through systems like NCS-TCP we aim to provide disease free and high yielding plants, irrespective of the season. Since the launch of NCS-TCP the plant tissue culture market has rapidly grown . The government will continue to promote the industry’s growth, he added.