Thursday, 19 January 2023 | PNS | DEHRADUN
Inspired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call to promote the use of millets and 2023 being the International Year of Millets, a teacher in association with her students has launched a unique start-up ‘Millet Station’. The startup is the brainchild of Assistant Professor at UPES University, Divya Rawat. She is being assisted in the venture by final year students of department of Nutrition and Dietetics, UPES University, Sahil Saini, Archie Singh, Shivani Verma, Sana Maqsood and Roshni Rawat.
The objective of the Millet Station is to promote and popularize local produce of the Himalayan region, provide livelihood to the local people, advocating sustainable nutrition, address migration in hills by providing job opportunities, contributing to the sustainable development goals, reducing consumption of packed and processed food and replacing it with a significantly healthier alternative and promote entrepreneurial environment amongst students.
“Millets have been an integral part of my diet since childhood. Now I have got a wonderful opportunity to work with students on millets and develop novel products which are tasty as well as healthy at the same time. This journey of project-based learning to a startup has been so fulfilling,’’ said Divya Rawat. Sahil Saini, Final year student said, “Through Millet Station I got the opportunity to attend TiECON which was organized at UPES campus and met exemplary entrepreneurs which was a great learning experience for me.”
Another student Shivani Verma, said, “I belong to Rajasthan where we used to consume traditional millet recipes and millet-based beverages prepared by my grandmother which was healthy and very refreshing. When I studied Food Science and Nutrition as one of the major subjects and the benefits of millets, I used a millet carnival at campus to showcase the traditional drink of my region and popularize it”.
Sana Maqsood said, “If we can successfully replace 30 per cent of our diet’s rice and wheat with millet, we will be able to bring about a nutrition revolution in India and make it healthier.”
