A working model for technological advancement and translating them for the welfare of people

Dr. Harsh Vardhan urges Indian Scientists to pursue “A working model for technological advancement and translating them for the welfare of people” 

Union Minister for S&T and Earth Sciences, Dr. Harsh Vardhan who visited CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (CSIR-IICT), a laboratory of the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) appreciated the efforts of scientists of CSIR-IICT, for covering diverse areas of research in a comprehensive manner that are formulated into action with successful examples.

Accompanied by Dr. S. Chandrasekhar, Director, CSIR-IICT and Dr. Ahmed Kamal, Outstanding Scientist, the Minister met with Heads of the departments of CSIR-IICT, Industry members and budding entrepreneurs. The Industry participation included representatives from Piramal Enterprises Ltd., Sigma Aldrich, Godavari Knowledge Park and BDMA, BioArtis Ltd., SAARUM, Alfa Life Sciences, AGTC Biotech Ltd, Alpha Enterprises, Stride Organics and Incogen. Some of the private sector participation was from start-up companies who have licensed CSIR-IICT‘s Know-How, process and technology for further commercialization. He appreciated CSIR-IICT for its concerted efforts in collaboration with industries for developing successful models of technology development and deployment. 

CSIR-IICT has, over the past 70 years, has been instrumental in addressing numerous scientific challenges and has provided innovative solutions to problems of Indian industries in the area of drugs & pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, biomaterials & delivery systems, Polymer materials for functional coatings, biodigesters for waste management, water purification, semiochemicals, nutraceuticals, etc. The laboratory has been successful in providing integrated and total solutions from lab to commercial scale for specialty chemicals. Some of the recent success stories of the laboratory include technologies developed for hydrazine hydrate, benzaldehyde and for t-butyl toluene, anisole and their derivatives.

The Minister also met the laboratory scientists who are turning into entrepreneurs by spinning off technologies which includes Mg based ecofriendly rechargeable batteries, platform for enzymes technologies for Pharmaceutical and agriculture applications and solar powered hybrid air conditioner etc., developed by them under the start-up programme recently announced by the Prime Minister.

Dr. Harsh Vardhan expressed happiness on the focus given by CSIR-IICT under the Dehradun Declaration aiming at the GOI initiatives and lauded the R&D efforts of the laboratory under the Make in India, Smart cities, Swasth, Swachh, Samarth and Sashakth Bharath as per the Dehradun Declaration. In appreciation of the laboratory’s performance, he suggested “that this kind of a working strategy of this lab could be a perfect model to be replicated by other CSIR labs, because normally a huge gap is noticed between the technological advancement and translating them for the welfare of people.”

Dr. Harsh Vardhan visited the various departments of the laboratory and urged scientists to place scientifically woven efforts to optimally manage into focused activities that can be measurable leading to perceptible results in well defined time frames. He urged the scientific community to be more proactive, think and produce ideas, discuss and convert the ideas into the proformas of the programs initiated by Government of India under the leadership of the Prime Minister.

The Minister also cautioned the scientific community on the duplication of similar work by several institutions due to lack of awareness. He emphasized that “reorientation of mind sets from casual to sincere by putting heart and soul is essential to considerably reduce the timelines for deliverables”. He suggested to conduct internal brainstorming sessions along with the younger colleagues who are smarter  to generate a data base of ideas from which a few can be picked up for developing into successful models and  provide solutions to meet the needs of the country.

The Minister while appreciating CSIR-IICT’s strong connect with the public, emphasized the importance of reaching out the technologies developed to the society.