Top twenty five innovators of the country were presented awards by the Principal  Scientific advisor to the Government of India Dr R Chidambaram in a glittering  function organised at the University of Petroleum and Energy Studies here on Thursday.

These awards are given every year by the National Research Development  Corporation (NRDC) for innovations and inventions. For indigenous development of “Drishti Transmission meter for airports” V  Shubha,. T G Ramesh, G Sivakumar, A Arul Paligan andi R Krishnamurthy of National  Aerospace laboratories, Bangaluru were awarded by Rs 500 lakh.

While for development of Continuous level probe (9800 mm) for liquid Sodium Dinesh Kumar of Bangalore was also awarded. For developing ‘Fru Wash’- a natural shelf life extender for fruits and vegetables without refrigeration, HM Chawla of IIT Delhi was given an award of Rs 3 lakhs. For development of a water filter for Arsenic removal PC Deb, A Shrivastava, MT Companywala and S Cheulkar of Naval Materials Research

laboratory, DRDO Maharastra and K Mishra of Defence Institute of Physiology and Allied Sciences, DRDO, Delhi were jointly awarded for Rs 3 lakh. For developing “Recreational device (Carom Board) for old and differently able persons for independent living M Das and B Roy of Secunderabad were jointly awarded Rs 3 lakh. Dhruv Jain, Keshav Peswani, TV Ashok and A Komarika, students of IIT Delhi and S Maheshwari of IIT Guwahati were given “budding innovators award” in the  ceremony.

In his address Chidambaram stressed the need for developing a healthy and conducive environment in the country in which the innovators can freely work and develop globally competitive technologies. Member secretary National Innovation council Dr Gairola and Chairman and Managing director of NRDC Rajendra Dobhal also addressed during the award ceremony.