Page 31 - 30NOV2019EA

ECONOMY

benefits such as carbon sequestration, also released a commemorative postal utility of their research. “The NIOT has
coastal protection, cultural values and stamp brought out on the occasion. already initiated working towards sev-
biodiversity. The Union Minister for Science and eral long term objectives like creating the
The Vice President conveyed his best Technology and Earth Sciences Dr Harsh offshore infrastructure to make offshore
wishes to the Ministry of Earth Sciences Vardhan observed that the Ministry wind energy more viable & effective,
(MoES) and NIOT for the success of their of S&T is in consultation with the NITI indigenization of marine sensors,” he
upcoming project — Samudrayaan, Aayog to launch the National Mission on said.
which envisages sending aquanauts Desalination which can help us solve the He added that IMD is providing pre-
to ocean depths with their manned growing problem of water that the world cise weather forecast with the result that
submersible. is facing today. while in 2015 about one crore farmers
Naidu declared that after assuming He commented “I have witnessed sev- were being provided with weather alerts
the office of Vice President of India, he eral key projects of NIOT especially the and now more than four crore farmers
has made it a mission to visit various sci- desalination project for providing water are benefitted by it. “In 2004 the Indian
entific institutions across the country to to the Lakshadweep Island community Ocean tsunami caused widespread loss
understand first-hand the research be- and the Ocean Thermal Energy Conver- of life and damage, but now we have
ing conducted by them. In this context, he sion project in Kavaratti for power gen- among the world’s best tsunami warn-
recalled his visit to INCOIS and the eration for desalination.” ing systems,” he added.
National Tsunami Warning Centre in The NIOT was established in Novem-
Hyderabad. ber 1993 as an autonomous society under
The Vice President said that he was How much significance the Ministry of Earth Sciences, Govern-
extremely impressed with the work be- government attaches ment of India by the then Department of
ing carried out by scientists in areas of Ocean Development. During this eriod,
ocean observation and information and to Blue economy can NIOT has established itself as one of the
advisory services and making the coastal premier institutes in the world, work-
states Tsunami-ready. The Vice President be evident from the ing on various ocean technologies. Dur-
also launched the Coastal Flood Warn- fact that VP Venkaiah ing this period, NIOT has demonstrated
ing System app for Chennai (CFLOWS- several technologies for societal applica-
CHENNAI) developed by the NIOT. He Naidu urges scientists tions such as Desalination plants, Data
to come up with and Tsunami Buoy Network in Indian
waters for collecting real time oceanic
innovative solutions data, sea cage culturing in open sea,
to conserve water shore protection. NIOT is also working
on continuous expansion to take benefits
resources and tackle of these technologies to the doorsteps of
climate change common citizens of country.
NIOT has to its credit many technolo-
gies which have been transferred to
Dr Harsh Vardhan said he also dedi- Indian industry as part of “Make in
cated to the nation the NIOT’s Polar India” programme of Govt. of India, like
Remotely Operable Vehicle (ROV), which the floating drifter, robo coastal observer,
was used in the search operations of the remotely operable vehicle etc.
sunken IAF AN-32 aircraft. “The ROV cat- The infrastructure at NIOT includes
apulted India to the elite club of nations hyperbaric chamber for testing of
like the USA, Japan, France, Germany & underwater systems and state-of-the-
Korea with successful development & art research ships. NIOT will be the nodal
usage of 6,000 m deep Remotely Oper- institution for implementing the pro-
ated Vehicle,” said Dr Harsh Vardhan. The posed Deep Ocean Mission, which
ROV has been transferred to the Indian encompasses all the areas of Ocean tech-
industry such as L&T Heavy Industries, nology like development of manned sub-
Mumbai & BEL, Bangalore, he added. mersible, offshore large scale desalina-
He congratulated the NIOT for trans- tion, Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion
ferring some of their technologies like (OTEC), extensive survey of the oceans,
robo-coastal observer, ocean drifter and acquisition of new ships etc.
expandable CTD to industries indicating
the commercial relevance and industrial letters@tehelka.com

31