National Award Conferred on Dr Ramesh Kumar Vijh, Principal Scientist at NBAGR Karnal

Hon'ble President of India has conferred the prestigious "Biotech Product and Process Development and Commercialisation Award 2013" upon Dr Ramesh Kumar Vijh on Technology Day, the 11th of May, 2013 at Vigyan Bhawan New Delhi for his outstanding research contribution for the development of parentage verification kits for livestock species. The award carried a certificate, a trophy and prize money of Rs 2.0 Lakhs.

Dr Ramesh Kumar Vijh and his project workers Jyoti Joshi, Priyanka Banerjee and Upasna Sharma developed parentage verification kits for all economically important livestock species. Five parentage verification kits have been developed based on DNA markers. Four of these kits are species specific for cattle, buffalo, goat and camel while one kit can resolve parentage and related issues in all ruminant livestock species - cattle, buffalo, goat, sheep, yak and mithun. The kits developed are highly accurate for parentage verification and are cost effective. The kits shall provide a unique identity to each animal, enhance the accuracy of selection of elite animals, reduce inbreeding, help in conservation and effective management of Animal Genetic Resources of the country. The kits may also find applications in forensic and insurance sector.

Dr Ramesh Kumar Vijh is Consortium Principal Investigator of National Agricultural Innovation Project " Identification of QTL for milk yield, fat and protein percent in buffaloes" and is Animal Sciences Group Leader of NAIP Mega Project on " Bioprospecting of genes and allele mining for abiotic stress tolerance" of Indian Council of Agricultural Research. The work for the development of parentage verification kits was carried out under these projects.

Hon’ble President of India has conferred the Award -2013 on Dr. R.K.Vijh

Dr. R.K.Vijh with his project worker