VNIT receives funding for centre ofexcellence in agri waste management

Time of India

27-04-2025

Nagpur: The Department of Science and Technology (DST), Govt of India, sanctioned a Rs 11.13 crore Centre of Excellence (CoE) at
Visvesvarya National Institute of Technology
(VNIT). The CoE, called SWAHA – Sustainability, Waste Valorisation, Agriculture, Health, Awareness, is the first of its kind in India. SWAHA will focus on F5 - food, feed, fodder, fuel, fertiliser through technology D4: design, development, demonstration, deployment.
Led by chemical engineering Professor Sachin Mandavgane with co-principal investigators Professor Manish Kurhekar (computer science engineering) and Professor Anupama Kumar (chemistry department), all from VNIT, the CoE involves seven national collaborators besides an industry partner.
The collaborating institutions are Nagpur Veterinary College, MAFSU, College of Veterinary and Animal Sciences Akola, IARI Delhi, AIIMS Nagpur, IIM Nagpur, JNU New Delhi, and Merino Industries Limited. The private collaborator, Merino, is the industrial partner that initiated the Merino Innovation Center at VNIT in 2019.
"The CoE will focus on creating value from agricultural waste like straw/stalk, horticulture waste (fruit, vegetables, and flowers), and food processing industry waste," Mandavgane told TOI.
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The other collaborators in the multi-institute CoE include Nagpur Veterinary College's Professor Atul Dhok, Akola's Postgraduate Institute of Veterinary and Animal Science's Professor Kuldeep Deshpande, New Delhi's Indian Agriculture Research Institute's Dr Manoj Srivastav, AIIMS Nagpur's Professor Ranjan Solanki, IIM Nagpur's Professor Papi Reddy, JNU's Professor Madav Govind, and Merino Industry CMD Prakash Lohia.
Mandavgane added that the CoE's objectives are the valorisation of agri-waste (primary processing waste and on-farm residue) into food (nutraceuticals and functional food from fruit and vegetable waste), feed (primary processing on-farm agro waste), fodder, fertiliser, and fuel.
The CoE's purpose also includes the engineering design of agri-waste biorefinery from industrial engineering aspects, sustainability assessment and techno-economics of the developed processes, scaling up, replicability, and go-to-market strategy. Awareness and training related to circularity and sustainability issues, networking, and linkages will also be done.
Mandavgane said his team started working on agriculture waste utilisation more than a decade ago under the mentorship of the late Dr BD Kulkarni. "Through support from Merino Group at VNIT, the technologies developed in the lab could be scaled up and tested on the actual field," he said.
VNIT Director Prem Lal Patel said every stakeholder will contribute to this initiative. "It is a matter of pride for VNIT to bag such projects," he said.
Merino CMD Lohia said the industry can't have expertise as well as R&D facilities at the same time. "There has to be such collaboration and cooperation between industry and engineering colleges. Others must also follow VNIT's example," he said.
Krishna Kanth Pulicherla, scientist, member secretary for Waste Management Technologies Program, Technology Translation and Innovation Division (DST), said India produces 650 million tonnes of agricultural wastes. "It is used as fodder or fuel but lately farmers are burning it, especially in Northern India. CoE at VNIT aims to curb this menace and utilise the waste," he said.