Dr. Jitendra Singh, Union Minister of State for Science & Technology and Earth Sciences (Independent Charge) today visited the today visited the National Physical Laboratory, a constituent laboratory of the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR). He was accompanied by Dr. P.S. Ahuja, Director General, CSIR. The primary mandate of NPL as given by an Act of Parliament is to keep and maintain continuously by research the National Standards of Measurements, making NPL the Metrology Institute of India.
As a part of the visit, the Minister interacted with the pisional Heads and young scientists of NPL after listening to a scientific presentation on the current research and development activities of NPL by the Director of the laboratory, Prof. R.C. Budhani, who emphasized on the emergence of quantum standards of measurements and creation of a world class research laboratory at NPL to house these standards and enable research for their future growth. He also highlighted the world class research in the area of solar energy harvesting being carried out at NPL under the TAPSUN programme of CSIR. To facilitate this research, a state-of-the-art clean room facility has been created at NPL, he added. Development of other energy-centric technologies, such as fuel cells, lithium ion batteries, thermoelectric generators and solar thermal energy and state-of-the-art research in the areas of precision time measurements, ultra low temperature physics for spintronics and superconducting electronics were also highlighted as a part of the presentation. Prof Budhani particularly talked about the ongoing programmes of NPL in understanding the environmental contaminants over the Indo-Gangetic planes and setting up of research facilities in the Himalayas to study propagation of pollutants.
The Minister also visited important R&D facilities of NPL, including solar energy complex, ultra low temperature research laboratory and the new metrology building which is yet to be inaugurated. Later speaking with the media persons Dr. Jitendra Singh emphasized on the need to use science and technology as a tool for social transformation. He called upon the media to propagate this message widely particularly to the youth of India so that they take science and technology as a career. He also emphasized that the children of the country should be encouraged to visit National Laboratories like NPL which have made seminal contributions to the growth of science and technology in the country.
Dr. Ahuja highlighted the standards related research at NPL at the global level. This view was further elaborated upon by Prof. Budhani who outlined the emerging areas of standards and measurement science, such as nanotechnology, metrology in chemistry, biomedical instrumentation and quantum metrology. He also emphasized the importance of these areas in health sciences, environmental issues and ultra fast computations and information processing.