Govt signs MoU with NBCC for building Indian Culinary Instts

The Tourism Ministry has joined hands with National Buildings Construction Corporation (NBCC) for construction of Indian Culinary Institutes (ICI) in Tirupati and Noida.
The aim is to promote Indian cuisine as a niche tourism product across the globe, according to a Tourism Ministry official.
NBCC, a subsidiary of the Urban Development Ministry, signed an MoU with ICI Society for setting up the two culinary institutes.
ICI will offer structured regular programmes of study specific to culinary arts leading to graduate and post-graduate level degrees, promote research and innovation, organise demand driven certificate and diploma courses, document and create database specific to Indian cuisine and commission studies and survey on cuisine.

Indian Culinary Institute (ICI) in Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh with its Northern regional chapter in Noida are being set up by the Tourism Ministry. Foundation stones for both the institutes have already been laid.
Andhra Pradesh has transferred 14.21 acres of land at Tirupati for construction of ICI Tirupati.

The setting up of ICI will help in institutionalising a mechanism to support efforts intended to preserve, document, promote and disseminate the Indian cuisine, meet the sectoral requirement of specialists specific to Indian cuisine to promote it as a niche tourism product.
The MoU was signed in the presence of senior Tourism and NBCC officials.

Currently there is no regular credible institutional source at apex level for supply of cuisine specialists to the sector. Also, at present there is no institutional mechanism to document and disseminate information related to cuisine.
There is also a dearth of ideal training ground to groom chefs of international standards. To fill the void, ICI would provide the appropriate training ground at par with the culinary schools functioning in different parts of the developed world.