The Council for Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) has achieved a record Rs 203 crore in external earnings like technology sales, licence fee and royalties during 1996-97, the highest in its five-decade-old history.
Included in this is Rs 60 crore received by selling technology to Indian companies, both public and private. This is twice the amount earned during 1995-96.
Technologies were sold to over 50 companies, including Reliance Industries for linear alkyl benzene (LAB) processing, NOCIL, tanneries in Tamil Nadu and the Mathura Oil Refinery.
The annual expenditure of CSIR, a consortium of 40 research laboratories, was Rs 400 crore this year, up 10 per cent from the previous period. Revenues have gone up from Rs 135 crore in 1994-95 to Rs 167 crore in 1995-96. It stood at Rs 90 crore in 1993-94.
CSIR chief R A Mashelkar told Business Standard that the accounts of the Council will be sent to the government for approval soon. The emphasis during the current year would be to narrow the gap between government funding and external earnings.
CSIR earned Rs 13 crore from selling a desulphurisation technology to the Mathura Oil refinery.
The technology had been specifically developed following environmental reports that pollutants from the refinery were causing damage to the Taj Mahal in Agra. The desulphurisation method would be installed at the refinery this year.
CSIR's tannery effluent treatment technology would be installed in some 200 leather processing units in Chennai, which were closed down for flouting environmental norms.
The low-cost effluent treatment system will bring discharge levels within accepted norms.
Mashelkar said that CSIR had recently started a crazy idea fund to support unconventional scientific endeavours.
The objective is to fuel work in basic and applied research, so that novel ideas were not lost in the rush for commercialisation for technology.
