Chennai, Nov 9 (PTI) The National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT), Chennai, should strive to develop vertical experts and expertise and convert imports to indigenous development, a top official said on Saturday.
Union Secretary of the Ministry of Earth Sciences, M Ravichandran exhorted the NIOT to undertake capacity building by not only having collaborative research with academia but also industry in developing vertical experts and expertise. It should convert ideas to products and progressively convert imports to indigenous development, he urged.
The Secretary was speaking after launching a web portal (https://mmip.indobis.in/) of Marine Microbial Repository of deep sea microbes in India, set up under the Deep Ocean Mission, in collaboration with C-DAC.
He lauded the work undertaken at NIOT, and highlighted that much of the domains that NIOT was working in were niche engineering and technology areas, and stressed that the country looked up to them, a PIB release here said.
Ravichandran, who was the chief guest at the 31st NIOT Foundation Day, said the NIOT has made progress over the years in development of the various modules of blue economy, having societal impact.
Prof Balaji Ramakrishnan, Director, NIOT gave an overview of the work undertaken at the institute, notable among them being the desalination projects in the Lakshadweep Islands, efforts at development of deep sea submersibles and mining trials for marine resources.
The Ballast Water Treatment Technologies - Test Facility (BWTT-TF) established at the NIOT sea front site at Pamanji and Vagarru villages in Tirupati district of Andhra Pradesh was dedicated to the nation by the Secretary, earlier.
This facility is designed to comply with the international regulations of the Ballast Water Convention 2004 for testing and validation of Ballast Water Treatment System (BWTS) as per D2-discharge regulations of International Maritime Organization (IMO) for basic, type, final approval and also, revalidation of the already approved BWTS.
"This facility is unique and one of its kind in the tropical region and in South East Asia," the release stated.