Jamshedpur : City-based CSIR- National Metallurgical Laboratory celebrated the National Technology Day at the NML auditorium.
Welcoming the gathering Dr. S. Srikanth, Director CSIR-National Metallurgical Laboratory, said “Unlike the strategic sector, the technologies in the civilian sector are today both global and market driven. We have changed course from the path of technologies for self reliance that dominated until 1990 to the path of competing for the global market”.
He added, “While science develops through individual brilliance of a disruptive mind, technology is developed by a team and partnership is the foundation of technology development. Further, scientific intervention may result from streak of instantaneous brilliance but building this into a technology can at times take decades of effort”.
In the context of dominance of the developed countries, Dr. Srikanth said, “Its was non availability of technology when India had no technology; technologies were offered at a price when Indian technology appeared to be coming up; the price was lowered when the Indian technology arrived; and when the Indian technology left nothing to be desired, the technology could be imported even for free! Therefore one has to overcome all of these if we have to aspire for the international market”.
Chief Guest, Dr. Srikumar Banerjee, Homi Bhabha Chair Professor, BARC Mumbai and Chancellor, Central University of Kashmir, Srinagar; (Former Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission and Secretary, Dept. of Atomic Energy, Govt. of India) delivered the Technology Day lecture on “Energy, Environment and Sustainability”.
Dr. Banerjee mentioned about the top 10 challenges that mankind has to face in the upcoming 50 years. These include Energy, Water, Food, Environment, Poverty, Terrorism & War, Disease, Education, Democracy, and Population.
Dr. Banerjee said, “Humanity’s biggest challenge as per today is to maintain a balance between energy supply and environment protection. If we take into account the present scenario regarding the distribution of energy, we see that nearly 40% of the household do not have access to electricity.
Thus, in order to overcome the energy crisis that the country is facing today we need to accomplish few parameters like- Cheap, abundant, clean and widely distributable, and also with an aim to reach a per capita generating capacity of at least about 3000 kWhr/yr by the year 2070.
While presenting on NML technologies, Dr. I. Chattoraj, Head, Business Development, said, ” The growing importance of industrial and technological research is evidenced from the fact that more than 60% of NML’s earnings in 2013-14 was from industrial projects”.
There are 45 active technologies at NML in the area of Mineral Beneficiation & Mineral processing; Process metallurgy; value additions to leans and waste; Biomaterials; Devices and sensors for NDT evaluation; water & effluent treatment; and surface treatment.
Laboratory’s Annual report for the year 2013-14 was released by the Chief Guest.