Times News Network

Mangalore, Jun 20: If you thought there was no escape from the rising fuel price, you may be wrong. MRPL / ONGC managing director R Rajamani has a solution in jetropa plants. He has advised National Institute of Technology-Karnataka (NIT-K) Suratkal scientists to work on areas like bio-diesel generated from jetropa plants that can be complementary to the naturally available diesel.

Inaugurating the one-day national workshop on ‘Recent advances in Industrial Biotechnology’ organised by the Centre of Relevance and Excellence (CORE) in Industrial Biotechnology, at NITK Suratkal, Rajamani suggested several applications of industrial biotechnology to improve the standard of living.

It can be recalled that a need for bio-fuel was echoed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Concerned over India’s dependence on imported energy sources, Singh had once said that the ministry of non conventional energy sources should focus on “replacing diesel in pump sets and tractors with biofuel’’.

Prof Prasad Rao, director-in charge of NITK, suggested that scientists at NITK should join hands with the industry to synergise the knowledge base of the institute and the technology for development of the country.

Prof S G Mayya, Dean (planning and development) NITK, briefed about the growth of TIFAC-CORE centre in industrial biotechnology in the last four years, and the necessary financial support provided to the centre by the institute.

The workshop was organised to highlight the importance of industrial biotechnology in agriculture, pharmaceutical, medical, energy, and environment. It emphasized the need for training manpower specialised in this area.

The workshop brought together about 85 delegates from different parts of the country. The delegates included students, scientists, faculty and personnel from the industry.

The experts who delivered lecturers included Prof Jayant Modak and Prof V Nagaraja from IISc Bangalore, Dr N G Karanth from CFTRI Mysore, Dr Kanekar from Agharkar Research Institute Pune and Dr S V Ramakrishna, Research Director, Reliance Biotech, Mumbai.

On this occasion, Fr Leo D’Souza, director of the Department of Biotechnology at St Aloysius College, inaugurated the advanced instrumentation laboratory that houses sophisticated equipment like gas chromatograph mass spectrometer, high performance liquid chromatography, atomic absorption spectrometer, chromatography etc.

This centre will provide expert consultancy and testing facility to all process industries and research students can avail the advanced facilities created here.