Thaindian News

New Delhi, April 25 (IANS) Indian defence research agency Monday got a shot in the arm for its efforts to market its world-class products globally with an American firm signing it up for technology transfer of an explosive detection kit (EDK).

US firm Crowe and Company signed a memoradum of understanding with the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) for obtaining licence for the technology of EDK.

The kit, developed by the Pune-based High Energy Material Research Lab (HEMRL), a DRDO lab, is already in use with the Indian armed forces.

HEMRL director Subhananda Rao signed the agreement with Crowe and Company president Faye Crowe here in the presence of DRDO Chief Controller Research and Development (Aeronautics and Services Interaction) Prahlada.

HEMRL has developed the kit for quick detection and identification of explosives based on any combination of nitro esters, nitramines, trinitrotoluene (TNT), dynamite or black powder.

The testing requires only three to five miligram of suspected sample and only three or four drops of reagents. The EDK comes packed in a vanity case-sized box and in miniature vials.

It contains reagents capable of detecting explosives, even in extremely small, trace quantities.

Crowe and Company had approached the Federation of Indian Chambers of commerce and Industry (FICCI) to enter into a MoU for licensing agreement with the DRDO for the EDK technology.

In the past, FICCI has also facilitated a similar kind of licensing agreement for explosive detection kit between DRDO and an Indian company Vantage Integrated Security Solutions.

The DRDO-FICCI accelerated technology assessment and commercialisation (ATAC) programme is a unique initiative that aims at commercialising cutting edge technologies developed by various labs of DRDO for civilian applications.

Speaking at the memorandum of understanding signing event, Prahlada, the architect of DRDO-FICCI ATAC initiative, said: “the ATAC programme has achieved a major milestone with the US Company taking DRDO technology for use by US homeland security and for international markets.”

He said the present technology can also be helpful to control illegal trafficking of explosive materials, as it can equally detect and identify explosive materials in the pre- and post-blast scenarios.

S. Sundaresh, DRDO chief controller of research and development for armaments and combat engineering, said the technology was “very effective”.

At present, it is being widely used by the bomb detection squads of the Indian Army, paramilitary and police in Jammu and Kashmir, Assam, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.

Faye Crowe said after getting the necessary approvals from the US regulatory institutions, her company was planning to introduce the EDK to the US Army and US homeland security forces and in other international markets.