Additional Development Commissioner, Ministry of MSME,
Govt of India, Dr. Ishita Ganguli Tripathy visited the Banki
Aromatic Products Cluster, Cuttack, Odisha on 11 th of August
2022. She was accompanied by Advisor KIIT-TBI,
Bhubaneswar and his team along with the representative of the
MSME Development Institute, Cuttack. It was an enthusiastic
gathering of over 100 SPV members and representatives of the implementing agency, who welcomed
Dr. Ishita with the essence of traditional Odiya culture.
Dr. Ishita took an exhaustive tour of the Common Facility Centre (CFC) and
witnessed the infrastructure, machineries, equipment and the product
manufacturing process at the cluster. Banki Aromatic Cluster is one of the
functional SFURI initiatives in Odisha promoted by KIIT-TBI as a Technical
Agency. The cluster has organized close to 900 farmers who are now
successfully cultivating aromatic plants and marketing value added products
under brand name – “Life Choice” and “Swarna Priya”. The cluster is all set to
introduce more items such as dhoop
cones, mosquito repellent sticks and soap products soon.
Advisor KIIT-TBI, on this occasion, highlighted the various key
aspects of the cluster to the ADC and also asked the cluster
players to gear up for a more robust and definitive plan of action
to build up the entity as a model SFURTI cluster.
Later Dr. Ishita interacted with a few beneficiaries and tried to understand the impact that the cluster has
brought in the lives of these beneficiaries in terms of improving their livelihood, income generation
prospects as well as uplifting their social security status in the community. She also addresses the
gathering and congratulated them for all their efforts and encouraged them to further the good work the
cluster has taken up.