New Delhi: The Indra Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) has announced that it will soon be establishing a first of its kind culinary institute in India, that will offer courses on Indian regional cuisines.

The decision to open up the institute at IGNOU's Maidan Garhi campus came after university's board of management and academic council gave their approval to the plan.

IGNOU Vice Chancellor, V.N. Rajasekharan Pillai has said that the introduction of the new courses will help in the documentation, preservation, development and the promotion of India's regional cuisines.

He said that all states and regions in India have their own unique cuisine. "Most of the authentic recipes of all these cuisines have been lost or are dying with the passage of time and need to be documented. IGNOU will be offering not only professional programmes such as certificate courses but also PhDs, MBAs and other specializations in Indian cooking," he said.

Officials at IGNOU have informed that the open university will be a part of the School of Tourism and Hospitality Services Management and the courses would commence from the 2011-2012 academic session.

Pillai further informed that the institute would be dedicated to the study of Indian culinary skills and would also conduct a wide range documentation and research programmes in social and cultural anthropology as well as other sciences related to the programme.

The culinary programme would also include comparative studies of other cuisines, courses on different aspects of restaurant management, the hospitality sector and tourism.

IGNOU is currently also planning to collaborate with several Swedish universities and institutes such as University of Gothenburg, Chalmers University of Technology, Swedish Institute for Food and Biotechnology and others for the new programme.

The university will be recruiting experts in regional cuisines as faculty for the new programmes, which will be full-time classroom courses. Others who will be involved with the courses would include chefs and hotel and restaurant managers.