Former director of Defence Research and Development Organisation V K Aatre opined that India cannot sustain economic development unless it pays serious attention to research in basic sciences.

Speaking at an international conference on “Polymeric materials in power engineering” at the Central Power Research Institute (CPRI) in Bangalore on Thursday, Dr Aatre observed that the country can’t sustain its development on service technology.  “The country has witnessed a great boom in IT sector and a lot of youths are drawn into this sector. But if the country has to sustain development, suck them away from service sector and put them in hard technology areas,” he added. However, Dr Aatre was happy that there was a heavy flow of investments in the research areas these days. On use of polymer materials, Dr Aatre said, as these materials are not bio-degradable, the researchers should look at the possibility of finding out environmental-friendly products.

Director-General of CPRI Dr A K Tripathy said, as the technology was getting modernised, the country was moving away from conventional power generators to supercritical boilers. The country is also moving towards sophisticated transmission lines. “Soon we will have 800 kv DC lines,” he added.


The country would have talks with China to have 1200 kv AC transmission lines.

More than 200 delegates including 40 international experts are participating in the three-day event.