Rupesh SamantPanaji, Jan 14 (PTI) With around 30 per cent of itsfunding coming from non-CSIR sources, Goa-headquarteredNational Institute of Oceanography (NIO) is hoping to becomemore self reliant in the next financial year.
In a major innovative programme, the world-renownedscience institute is researching how sea weeds or otherunderground flora and fauna can be used for the betterment ofmankind and to explore whether they can be used as nutrition,or a drug or as a cosmetic product.
"The NIO is relying on the funding made available fromCSIR (Council of Scientific & Industrial Research), which theparent body governing us. But we also get the funds from othersources, including private bodies, to the tune of 30 percent," CSIR-NIO Director Sunil Kumar Singh told PTI recently.
He said the CSIR-NIO was executing projects for othergovernment organisations like the Ministry of Earth Sciences(MOES), Ministry of Environment and Forest and the Directorateof BioTechnology (DBT) besides providing service to theprivate industries.
Singh said the NIO wanted to increase this share of 30per cent revenue collected from the non-CSIR organisations sothat the institute becomes self-reliant.
"The budget of CSIR-NIO is Rs 100-120 crore annuallyof which Rs 30-40 crore is generated from the non-CSIRprojects," he added.
The NIO has also been associated with the Oil andNatural Gas Commission and private firms like Reliance andAdani for which it is undertaking offshore survey to locatepetroleum and hydro-carbon, besides laying underwater pipelinefor their projects.
The CSIR-NIO has also been doing a survey for thepower grid, which also adds to the revenue collected by thescience institute.
Singh said the revenue generated from the non-CSIRbodies cannot be relied upon as "sometimes some year, NIO getsa good project but for some year, it (revenue) goes down".
"We would like to get more and more of non-CSIRfundings so that there is a self-reliance, but we have not setany such target to earn the funding. We have to keep the lowerlimit at at least 30 per cent to get the funding," he added.
Singh said the NIO wanted to strengthen the existingfacilities as well as to expand the research programme.
"Oceanographic research is more towards understandingthe processes and it is towards the basic science," theCSIR-NIO director said.
He said the stress would be on utilising the researchbenefit of research for the societal benefit.
Singh said one of big programmes the NIO was planningto undertake was the poly-metallic nodule programme.
"We have already surveyed and exploratory work isalready done. We have identified the areas where we can domining. This is one area where we would like to strengthen sothat mining is possible as soon as it can be," Singh said.
In one of its most innovative projects, the CSIR-NIOis also researching how sea weeds or other underground floraand fauna can be used for the betterment of mankind.
"Other area in which CSIR-NIO would be very muchtrying to push is about converting sea weeds and other floraand fauna for the benefit of mankind, whether they can be usedas a nutrition, or drug or as a cosmetic product," he said.
The director said the extensive research was going onthis aspect with breakthrough is being achieved in one of theprojects.
"Recently, we have transferred one technology to aprivate firm in which our scientists were able to get somebacteria out of the ocean which can be used as a sunscreen toprotect the skin from ultra violet rays," he said.
"These bacterias were on the sponges. We have giventhe technology to a private company which will commerciallyexplore the research and see how they can take it further.
This was found off the Cochin area," he added.
The researchers are also working on extractingnutrition from the ocean which could be of enormous potential.
"Lot of food colour is required for the people. Seaweed could be a source for food colour. We are exploring thepossibility whether it can be exploited at industrial scale,"Singh stated.
The CSIR-NIO is also working in the field ofgas-hydrates.
"We have been working on this project for some timeand we have explored some area in the Krishna Godavari basinwhere there is potential for gas hydrate. The challenge is howto extract them. We will have to do a lot of technologyenhancement for that so that these gas hydrates can beextracted," he added. PTI RPSNSK.
This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.