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Nashik facility to make missile propellants

Special Correspondent

To be ready in three to four years; to help in research on process engineering

HYDERABAD: A Rs. 300-crores facility to manufacture propellants for missiles and rockets would be set up by the Defence Development and Research Organisation (DRDO) at Nashik, the Scientific Adviser to the Defence Minister, M. Natarajan, said here on Wednesday.

On the sidelines of the 5th International High Energy Material Conference & Exhibit - 2005, he said the facility would initially make propellants on a pilot basis; it would be upscaled subsequently.

It would be ready in three to four years and would help in research on process engineering and production of propellants required for different programmes.

Centres of excellence

Mr. Natarajan said the Government permitted DRDO to set up four centres of excellence in collaboration with universities. The first centre had been established at the University of Hyderabad for research on high-energy materials.

The second was proposed at the University of Kolkata campus to work on millimetric devices.

Research park

M.S. Ananth, director, IIT-Madras, said the Rs.100 crores research park, being set up near Tidel Park in Chennai, was expected to be completed by December 2006. The corporate sector would occupy 85 per cent of the space available and the rest would be earmarked for incubation.

Earlier, inaugurating the conference, Mr. Natarajan urged scientists to explore the possibility of using hydrogen as an alternative fuel.

The High Energy Materials Society, which organised the event, conferred honorary fellowship on Alexander Vorozhtsov of the University of Tomsk State University and Roland Pein from the German Aerospace Establishment. Indian scientists, S. Krishnan and V.N. Krishnamurthy, were also honoured.

Mr. Natarajan gave away the Dalmia-HEMSI Awards to P.L. Verghese of the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre and P. Mukundan of the Naval Physical and Oceanographic Laboratory.

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