Dr. Manoj Kumar Gupta

Phone: +91-782******* Email:acdq3n@r.postjobfree.com

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Profile Summary

Doctorate in agricultural engineering (Major in Agricultural Processing and Structures) with 8.9

years of rich experience in ICT intervention in agriculture- agricultural domain consulting, F&V

supply chain management, vendor development, whole sale distribution, WSD stores establishment

& operations, institutional sales, contract farming, collection centers establishment & management,

MIS & planning, research and teaching.

Work Experience

Infosys Limited

Lead Consultant (Functional) (March 12, 2012 - Present)

Working on an ICT mediated solution for agricultural ecosystem. The solution aims to create virtual

networks (knowledge/business/service networks) those enable aggregating various stakeholders to a

common platform, to provide a business platform that enables interactions among and across various

communities to get business opportunities, to serve as a service platform using wide variety of ICT

approaches and other modes to establish the last mile connectivity among involved stakeholders.

The platform is a communication and collaboration platform for the different players, involved in

agriculture ecosystem. The platform roadmap has 6 different service baskets around knowledge,

analytics, compliances, promotion and campaign, commodity trading and supply chain management,

hosting, and banking & insurance.

As a part of product management team, the key responsibilities include

Requirement gathering and defining new functionalities for the platform.

Use cases development and reviews.

Support pre sales activities: proposals/RFPs.

Thought leadership.

Value chain and competitors’ analysis.

Support development team to come up with required functionalities.

Functional testing of the developed modules.

Discussion with partners on various functional requirements of the platform.

lP creation.

Highlights

Designed basic data model for the platform.

Defined different profiles around farmer, farm, soil, and crops.

Defined requirements for 4 modules and translated the requirements into user stories for

further development.

Defined tool functionalities for system driven comparison on important attributes for various

aspects of crop cultivation i.e. soil treatment, land preparation, nutrients management,

irrigation scheduling, and plant protection.

Defined crop activity scheduler on proposed activities for a crop cultivation and compliances.

IP creation: working on the document for crop activity scheduler.

Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar, Haryana

(Sept 15, 2011 – March 9, 2012)

Assistant Professor

Conducted lectures for UG, & PG students.

Involved in a research project on solar energy utilization for fruits and vegetables drying.

Navsari Agricultural University, Navsari, Gujrat

(Jul 01, 2010 – Sept 12, 2011)

Assistant Professor

Conducted lectures for Diploma & UG students.

Labs’ establishment.

Coordinator for administration and academic activities.

Sher-e- Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology, Srinagar

Assistant Professor (May 31, 2010 - Jun 30, 2010)

Conducted lectures for UG students

Central Institute of Postharvest Engineering and Technology, Ludhiana

Research Associate (Jun 01, 2009 - May 29, 2010)

Worked on two research projects viz.: “Studies on cryogenic grinding for retention of flavor and

medicinal properties of some important Indian spices” and “Technology for Plant and Dairy

Ingredients based formulated and Functional Foods using Extrusion Technology" under Indo-U.S.

Agriculture Knowledge Initiative (AKI)”. The assignment included

Conducting trials for different processes and feed parameters.

Data analysis with optimization of the process parameter using different statistical software –

RSM (Response Surface Methodology), SAS, Matlab, Surfer, Statistica, Mars.

Publication of the results of the study in national and international journals.

Reliance Retail Limited, Chandigarh

(Feb 20, 2006 – May 31, 2009)

Deputy Manager

As cluster head for Punjab & H.P., I was responsible for whole sale business of F&V, and Milk

categories and managed a team of 70 agri-professionals to streamline backend and front end

operations for whole sale store format. Key responsibilities included:

P&L head of F&V, and milk categories for Punjab Ranger Farm Stores.

Collection centers management for local and national sourcing- 9 collection centers across

Punjab and Himachal Pradesh.

Procurement planning and sourcing.

WSD & collection centers establishment.

Market analysis.

Vendor development.

Institutional sales.

Highlights:

Successfully started institutional & Mandi Sales in Chandigarh with consistent supply of

quality F &V with >15% GM.

Punjab state was top performer in the category of F&V in March, 2009 at national. level and

the stores were top performer on pan India establishment of the business.

Planned and established 8 RF stores in Punjab.

Established 9 collection centers across Punjab.

Handled three special assignments on potato, lychee, and kinnow procurement from UP,

Bihar, and Punjab.

Training and evaluation of store, CC and mandi staff (30 professionals) to ensure accuracy

and timeliness of the targets.

Prepared CC manuals and developed excel sheet model for analyzing merchandising model at

each of product line.

Strong & consistent in record-keeping to reduce month end data analysis process and to bring

accuracy & efficiency in operations.

Participated & presented innovative ideas in conferences to promote sale.

Punjab Agri Food Parks Ltd, Chandigarh

(Apr 2005 – Feb 2006)

Sr. Manager (Tech.)

The key responsibilities included

Contract farming operations.

Manage model farm activities.

Pack-house and processing unit management.

Client interaction.

F&V Procurement.

Formulating company policies for long term growth.

Highlights

Successfully contracted and managed 10, 000 acres of Basmati Contract farming.

Achieved 1000 acres of vegetable contract farming with 100 acres of organic vegetables

production.

Started crop loan facility in the region.

Organized and conducted training programs to orient the farmers and stake holders in agro

industry.

Represented the organizations on state level govt. meetings and other corporate affairs.

Organized seminars for farmers on village and block level in association with Agriculture

Dept. and Punjab Agro Food Grain Corporation.

Educational Profile

2006 Ph.D. (Agricultural Processing and Structures) Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New

Delhi. Marks: 80.8%

Thesis: Development of a decision support system for greenhouse vegetable seedling

production.

2001 M.Tech. (Processing & Agricultural Structures) Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana,

Marks: 80.2%

Thesis: Dehydration studies on cauliflower.

1999 B.E. (Agricultural Engineering) Rajasthan Agricultural University, Bikaner.

Marks: 65.59%

Project: Performance evaluation of 1 m. self propelled vertical conveyor reaper

2001 Advanced Certificate in Software Engineering (Certified by IBM, Advanced Career

Education)

Academic Laurels

Recipient of Senior Research Fellowship (CSIR) for Ph.D. Programme

Qualified National Eligibility Test (NET) 2001.

Recipient of IARI Fellowship

Merit certificate for post-graduate studies.

Recipient of Junior Research Fellowship (ICAR) M.Tech. Programme 1999-2001.

Qualified Graduate Aptitude Test for Engineers, 2009.

Practical Trainings Attended

One month practical training at “Office of the Area Development Commissioner (L.D. wing)

CAD Chambal, Kota (Raj.) ” in Jun’98.

One month practical training at “Central Farm Machinery Training and Testing Institute, Tractor

Nagar, Budni (M.P)” in Jun’97.

Publications

1. Singh, Awani K., Singh, R. K., Singh, A. K, Singh, V. K.; Rawat, S. S., Mehta, K. S., Kumar,

A., Gupta, M.K., Thakur, S. (2014). Bio-mulching for ginger crop management:Traditional

ecological knowledge led adaptation under rainfed agroecosystems. Indian Journal of

Traditional Knowledge 13(1): 111-122.

2. Gupta, M. K., Sehgal V.K. and Arora, S. (2013). Optimization of drying process parameters

for cauliflower drying. Journal of Food Science and Technology 50(1): 62-69.

3. Kadam, D. K, Gupta, M.K. and Kadam, V.M. (2013). The thin layer drying kinetics of

Henna leaves. Agricultural Engineering Scientific Journal, Serbia, 38(3):85-100.

4. Balasubramanian S., Gupta M. K., and Singh K. K. Cryogenics and its Application with

reference to spice grinding (2012). Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition

52(9):781-94.

5. Gupta, M. K., Chandra, P., Samuel, D.V.K., Singh, B., and Singh, A. K(2012). Modeling of

tomato seedling growth in greenhouse. Agricultural Research 1(4):362-369.

6. Gupta, M. K. and Sehgal V.K. (2012). Effect of process parameters and storage length on

quality of dried cauliflower during storage. Indian Journal of Traditional knowledge 11 (1):

177-184

7. Gupta, M. K., Sehgal, V.K., Kadam, D.M., Yadav, Y.K (2012). Effect of bed thickness on

cauliflower drying. American Journal of Biochemistry 2(5):56-61.

8. Gupta, M. K. and Sehgal V.K.(2011). Drying kinetic of cauliflower in a convective hot air

dryer. Journal of Agricultural Engineering 48 (3): 26-31.

9. Mridula. D., Jain, D., Singh, K.K., Patil, R.T., and Gupta, M. K. (2011). Physico-chemical

and sensory quality of extruded foods developed from rice and DSF/chickpea dhal

supplemented with dried beet root. Journal of Agricultural Engineering 48(4): 17-23.

10. Kadam D.M., Goyal R. K., and Gupta M. K. (2011). Drying kinetics of basil leaves .

Journal of Medicinal Plant Research 5(19):4721-4730.

11. Verma P.D., Gupta M. K., Pastagia J.J., and Parmar V.K. (2011). Farm Mechanization in

Tribal areas: Experiences from Dang and Narmada (Accepted). Presented in National

workshop on Agriculture tools and traditional black-smithy: Present trends and future

prospectus held at Agriculture Tools Research Centre (ATRC), Suruchi Shikshan Vasahat

Trust, Bardoli, Dist. Surat, Gujarat during January 20-22, 2011.

12. Gupta, M. K., Samuel, D.V.K, and Sirohi, N.P.S (2010). Decision support system for

greenhouse seedling production. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 73: 133-145.

13. Kadam, D.K., Goyal, R.K., Singh, K. K., and Gupta, M. K. (2010). Thin layer convective

drying of mint leaves. Journal of Medicinal Plant Research 5(2):164-170.

14. Gupta, M. K. and Sehgal V.K. (2005). Storage study of dehydrated cauliflower. Journal of

Agricultural Engineering 42(2): 50-53.

Reviewer on panel of the following Journals

Food control

Computers and Electronic in Agriculture

Indian journal of agricultural engineering

Journal of food processing and preservation

Journal of agricultural economics and development

Journal of agricultural and biological sciences

Memberships: Life Member of Indian Society of Agricultural Engineers

Date of Birth: Dec15, 1976.

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