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Indian engineers recalled to re-start
Ghana's $300,000 silk project
Thursday August 04, 2011 12:32:00 PM,
Francis Kokutse,
IANS
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Accra:
Indian engineers who worked on a silk production project
in Ghana have been asked to return as the machines had been lying
idle for over seven years for lack of trained local engineers,
officials said.
An Indian company that installed machines for the $300,000 silk
project has been asked by Ghana's food and agriculture ministry to
return and revamp the machines that had been lying idle. The
project is a collaborative effort between the ministry and the
regional office of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).
Aryan Indian Engineers personnel installed and trained local
engineers and technicians at Council for Scientific and Industrial
Research (CSIR) to work on the $300,000 silk production project as
part of the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC)
programme that has imparted skills training and helped in capacity
building in over 150 countries, including most countries in
Africa.
Ministry officials said the return of the Indian engineers was
necessary because they are keen to rehabilitate the machines as
well as train Ghanaians to be recruited to work on the project.
The machines were procured to process silk into high quality
fabrics and Indian engineers were contracted to install them.
FAO officials said the machines were procured under the
organisation's Technical Cooperation Programme but have remained
idle for the past seven years at the premises of the Institute of
Industrial Research (IIR), a unit of CSIR in Accra.
Officials are in the process of securing funding for farmers to
produce cocoon, which is the raw material needed for the
production of silk. They have also considered the possibility of
using public-private partnership to manage the project which is
made up of cocoon processing machines, and silk processing.
An initial test run during a pilot study show that project is
commercially viable and capable of processing 50 kg of cocoons per
day.
(Francis
Kokutse can be contacted at
fkokutse@hotmail.com)
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