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Dr. Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University, Pusa

In the imperial Gazetteer of India 1878, Pusa was recorded as a government estate of about 1350 acres in Darbhanba. It was acquired by East India Company for running a stud farm to supply better breed of horses mainly for the army. Frequent incidence of glanders disease (swelling of glands), mostly affecting the valuable imported bloodstock made the civil veterinary department to shift the entire stock out of Pusa. A British tobacco concern Beg Sutherland & co. got the estate on lease but it also left in 1897 abandoning the government estate of Pusa. Lord Mayo, The Viceroy and Governor General, had been repeatedly trying to get through his proposal for setting up a directorate general of Agriculture that would take care of the soil and its productivity, formulate newer techniques of cultivation, improve the quality of seeds and livestock and also arrange for imparting agricultural education. The government of India had invited a British expert. Dr. J. A. Voelcker who had submitted as report on the development of Indian agriculture. As a follow-up action, three experts in different fields were appointed for the first time during 1885 to 1895 namely, agricultural chemist (Dr. J. W. Leafer), cryptogamic botanist (Dr. R. A. Butler) and entomologist (Dr. H. Maxwell Lefroy) with headquarters at Dehradun (U.P.) in the forest Research Institute complex. Surprisingly, until now Pusa, which was destined to become the centre of agricultural revolution in the country, was lying as before an abandoned government estate. In 1898. Lord Curzon took over as the viceroy. A widely traveled person and an administrator, he salvaged out the earlier proposal and got London’s approval for the appointment of the inspector General of Agriculture to which the first incumbent Mr. J. Mollison (Dy. Director of Agriculture, Bombay) joined in 1901 with headquarters at Nagpur The then government of Bengal had mooted in 1902 a proposal to the centre for setting up a model cattle farm for improving the dilapidated condition of the livestock at Pusa estate where plenty of land, water and feed would be available, and with Mr. Mollison’s support this was accepted in principle. Around Pusa, there were many British planters and also an indigo research centre Dalsing Sarai (near Pusa). Mr. Mollison’s visits to this mini British kingdom and his strong recommendations. In favour of Pusa as the most ideal place for the Bengal government project obviously caught the attention for the viceroy.

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20202
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Subject: Processing and Food Engineering × End date: 2020 × Start date: 2020 ×
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    Development of low cost portable Corn Roaster-cum-Boiler
    (DRPCAU, Pusa, 2020) Thokchom, Dinesh; Kumar, Vishal
    In India, roasted or boiled sweet corns are sold by the street vendors very highly and also the roasted and boiled corns are popular snacks enjoyed by many people. Many have tried and various technologies have been created for the process of quicker and easy, low cost, stress-free roasting to be obtained. The limitation of unavailability of an integrated corn roasting cum boiling unit is mainly due to the huge gap between the affordability of Indian street vendors and the high cost of the machines for roasting and boiling corns. Beside from this, the Indian vendors also experience another drawback in the form of drudgery involved during roasting and boiling where they are constantly exposed to heat. At times when the corn is over or under roasted, the traditional roasting process affects the outer beauty or attractiveness of the corn. The use of power driven and automated equipments are impossible for Indian street vendors due to their economic conditions. Therefore, developing of a corn roasting device with increased efficiency, productivity and with affordable price is very much needed in order to face the stress and limitations during roasting. A low cost portable corn roaster-cum-boiler was designed and developed and its performance evaluation was evaluated. It was designed and fabricated which can roast around 20 corns and can boil 24 corns in an hour. The average heat utilization factor in no load condition was found to be 0.14 while at full load condition it was 0.26. An average thermal efficiency of 51.05 per cent was obtained for the unit. The mean roasting efficiency of the developed corn cob roaster cum boiler was determined to be 95.09%.Total cost of the functional prototype is Rs 20,000.The net present worth calculated for next 5 years was Rs 1, 64,990, internal rate of return 243 per cent, benefit cost ratio 1.44 and payback period 0.40 years inferring that the developed unit is economically viable.
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    Development of ready to use powder from plant based clarificants for production of quality jaggery
    (DRPCAU, Pusa, 2020) Tekam, Amit; Kumar, Vishal
    Sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum L.) is commercial cash crops used for the Jaggery production. The process involves extraction of juice, clarification and concentration. The raw juice contains impurities and non-soluble solids which affect the quality of the jaggery. Hence clarification process is done. Plant based clarificant are effective clarificants and produces good quality jaggery. Due to non-availability of any plant based clarificants during jaggery manufacturing period, an attempt was made to develop ready-to-use clarificant powder prepared from different plant based clarificants which can be available throughout the year. The selected clarificant materials - fenugreek seeds, flax seeds, soybean seeds, semal bark and okra stem were dried and milled into powder using grinder. The mucilage was prepared from seeds and plant sources powder by soaking in water at ratio of 1:5 (w/v) for 6 h, then boiling in water bath for 5 h and then cooling below 20 oC. The mixtures were then filtered with muslin cloth and the filtered was used for jaggery production at three different concentrations namely 0.1%, 0.3% & 0.5% (w/w) to sugarcane juice. The effect of the clarificants and their levels on each quality parameters such as moisture content, jaggery yield, processing time, scum removal, TSS, pH, colour, reducing sugar, non-reducing sugar and sensory score were found using one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) at 5 per cent level of significance. It was observed that jaggery yield, processing time, scum removed, colour and sensory were affected significantly by the type of clarificants used while reducing sugar, non-reducing sugar, pH, TSS and moisture content had non-significant effect. Okra stem clarificants had maximum effect on quality parameters in order to yield-12.2%, processing time-72.33 min, colour-74.56%, non-reducing sugar-83.14%, reducing sugar- 8.02%, TSS-81.3% and moisture content-5.34%. Soybean seeds had maximum effect on scum removed and pH. Sensory attributes were maximum for fenugreek seeds. Okra stem, soybean seed and fenugreek seeds were selected for the preparation of mixture clarificants which will bear all the quality parameters for the production of quality jaggery. The mixture clarificants were optimized using Response surface methodology to determine the mixtures proportion based on quality parameters. A total 16 combinations were formed with three levels of each clarificants [okra stem-0.1, 0.3 and 0.5%, soybean seeds-0.1, 0.3& 0.5%, Fenugreek seeds-0.1, 0.3& 0.5%] and the effect of mixtures were determined on different dependent variables like yield, processing time, scum removal, colour, and sensory score of these independent variables. Second order multiple regression equations were also developed for all the dependent variables. The optimize mixture clarificant of okra stem- 0.5 per cent, soybean seeds- 0.1 per cent and fenugreek seeds - 0.4 per cent emerged out as better than other mixture in order to obtain optimized yield - 12.16 per cent, scum remove - 6.58 percent, colour-74.31 per cent, sensory score-8.72, and minimum processing time-75.42 min.