The Coconut Development Board and CARe-Keralam have joined hands for promoting projects on coconut value-addition and product development.

A memorandum of understanding in this regard has been signed between Mr T.K. Jose, chairman, CDB, and Mr K.Raman, managing director, CAEe-Keralam, on Friday. The MoU aims to conceive and implement projects under the technology mission on coconut (TMOC).

CARe-Keralam will act as a facilitator of the projects on coconut oil, virgin coconut oil (VCO) and coconut water. It will source research projects to be submitted to the Board under TMOC. These research projects will be based on themes of interest to CDB.

CARe-Keralam will identify entrepreneurs willing to invest in technologies developed by CDB and submit bankable detailed project reports for getting assistance. CARe-Keralam will act as one of the focal points of the Board’s activities at the national level, Mr Raman said.

CARe-Keralam is a SPV for providing a centralised infrastructure for standardised manufacture of ayurvedic medicines and rendering services to the cluster of ayurvedic companies in the State. The company also works on documentation of various ayurvedic products.

Mr Jose said on the occasion that the Board is associating with CARe-Keralam for research studies/product development, validation and commercialisation in the areas such as clinical studies on use of VCO as oral application to infants to develop immunity and pharmaceutical studies to develop a product based on tender coconut water against urethral stones and production of antibiotic using tender coconut water.

Through TMOC, the Board aims to establish a convergence and synergy among its ongoing programmes to bring about vertical and horizontal integration to ensure adequate, timely and concurrent attention to all the links in production, processing, product diversification, marketing etc for the upliftment of stakeholders of coconut, he added.

Sajeevkumar.v@thehindu.co.in

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