Dr (Mrs) N Kalaiselvi, Director General CSIR & Secretary DSIR, Govt of India inaugurated the RJ Saints Stevia processing plant at Singha in Una district of Himachal Pradesh that has been developed with the technical support of CSIR-Institute of Himalayan Bioresource Technology (CSIR-IHBT), Palampur. It is one of its one-of-a-kind green processing units that has the capacity to process dry stevia leaves into steviol glycoside powder.
It is pertinent to mention that Stevia is a low-calorie natural sweetener which is about 300 times sweeter than sucrose and can be consumed by diabetics.
Prior, to this Dr Kalaiselvi visited the Stevia farms wherein the variety “Him Stevia” developed by the institute is being grown in an area of more than 200 acres. She witnessed the latest farm management practices including the use of drones for spraying plant nutrients.
Dr Kalaiselvi also congratulated RJ Saints for taking this wonderful initiative that has the potential to be a game changer as India is the diabetic capital of the world. She appreciated the efforts of the institute in striving towards Viksit Bharat.
On the occasion, Dr Sudesh Kumar Yadav, Director CSIR-IHBT presented the work carried out by the institute on Stevia. He emphasised that worldwide, some 540 million people in the age group of 20-79 years are living with diabetes and that this number is projected to upsurge to 645 million by 2030. India alone has 77 million people above the age of 18 years with diabetes. Generally, diabetes patients are not recommended to consume cane sugar whereas stevia comes as a sweet alternative. He dwelled on the characteristics of the variety “HimStevia” developed by the institute which has 14.5% total glycoside content.
He also emphasised the Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) for higher productivity and yield, and the green process technology for extracting pure steviol glycoside from leaves.
Mr Ravi Sharma, the owner of RJ Saints recalled his involvement with the institute since 2016 and thanked the institute for the help and guidance.
