New Delhi: A national institute dedicated for promotion and preservation of India’s rich culinary culture is set to commence its first academic session. The first academic session of the Indian Culinary Institute (ICI), Tirupati will start with a 3 year B.Sc. programme in Culinary Arts from August, 2016. ICI, Tirupati is an initiative of the Ministry of Tourism for popularising academic courses in culinary arts. The market for culinary tourism to India is growing as India’s culinary traditions continue to attract international tourists.
The ICIs will offer structured regular programmes of study specific to culinary arts leading to graduate and post graduate level degrees, promote research and innovation, organize demand driven certificate and diploma courses, document and create data base specific to Indian cuisine and commission studies and survey on cuisine. The national institute will provide training ground at par with the culinary schools functioning in different parts of the developed world.
Till now, the Ministry of Tourism, Government of India has a wide network of Institutes of Hotel Management (IHMs) and Food Craft Institutes (FCIs) to meet the trained manpower requirement of the sector at skill and entry-point supervisory / managerial levels. However, there has not been any credible institutional mechanism which could provide cuisine specialists to the sector or groom chefs having skills matching global standard. The ICI will make best efforts in providing the students exposure to the latest concepts and technologies and access to state of the art facilities.
