mangaluru the national institute of technology karnataka nitk has signed a memorandum of understanding mou with the national jute board njb ministry of textiles government of india to develop technology to make geocell products from jute and standardize them for various engineering applicationsthe commercially available polymerbased geocells are costly and not readily available in rural areas and small towns this navigates towards inventing an eco friendly costeffective cellular confinement product that satisfies engineering strength requirements jute is a natural material that is plentifully available in indiaalmost 85 of the worlds jute cultivation is concentrated in the ganges delta it is high time that india explores its diverse applications and widens its usage in the form of different products the project by nitk surathkal proposes a very affordable and ecofriendly method of ground improvement using jute in the form of cellsthe njb has been entrusted with the implementation of multiple activities and projects by the ministry of textiles to modernize technologically upgrade improve productivity develop diversified jute products and develop human resources for the jute sector in this context njb is joining hands with one of the premier technical institutes of national importance nitk surathkal to develop the technology for a new product from jute termed jute geocellsthis work has been entrusted to nitk surathkal in the form of a research project worth rs 48 lakh with sreevalsa kolathayar as the principal investigator raviraj hm and somasekhara rao t as the coprincipal investigators and a u ravishankar sta pmgsy as advisor kscste centre for water resource development and management cwrdm and kerala highway research institute khri are collaborating agencies for this project and birla jute mill a unit of birla corporation limited is the industry partnerrecently dr mahadeb datta deputy director njb visited mangaluru and nitk surathkal campus for fasttracking of the project he also delivered an expert lecture on civil engineering applications of jute geotextiles which more than 200 researchers and students attended datta said that the jute geocell proposed by nitk is one of its kind and will find extensive applications and massive usage once the technology is developed and transferred to the industry sreevalsa added that the wide use of jute for infrastructure projects would pave the way for achieving un sustainable development goals particularly sdg 9 industry innovation and infrastructure and sdg 11 sustainable cities and communities