Industry body FICCI and ThinkThrough Consulting Bangladesh have joined hands to promote and commercialize grassroot technologies developed in India and Bangladesh. The announcement was made as part of the RuTAG Technology Commercialization Programme which is led by the Office of the Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India and implemented by the industry chamber.

The announcement was made on the side-lines of the two-day visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Bangladesh.

According to a statement released by Ficci, a bouquet of 49 technologies received under the RuTAG (Rural Technology Action Group) programme will be offered to industry, social start-ups and NGOs in Bangladesh.

These technologies have been developed at RuTAG centres housed across seven Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) in India and focus on problems associated with marginal communities in rural areas. RuTAG innovations such as floating fish cages for inland aquaculture, powerless solar dryer for food processing, cold storage powered by pico hydro among others respond to real life problems faced by rural populations, the statement said.

The technologies are across a wide range of sectors including environment, agriculture and farming, textiles, manufacturing, food processing and aquaculture among others. Besides technology transfer, capacity building support and virtual training sessions will also be provided to Bangladesh entrepreneurs to seamlessly absorb the Indian technologies.