Rajeev Kher, secretary, department of commerce (DoC) and JS Deepak, chairman and MD, India Trade Promotion Organisation (ITPO) signed a Memorandum of Understanding for the year 2015-16. Deepak indicated that for the year 2015-16, the ‘Excellent’ financial target for gross sales has been fixed at 257 crore as compared to 243 crore in the previous year. As the premier trade promotion agency, under the department of commerce, ITPO has taken up an ambitious MoU target for development of a state-of-the-art convention centre in Pragati Maidan to accommodate world class conventions with a seating capacity of 4,000. He also informed that ITPO has already achieved excellent MoU rating for consecutive three years starting from 2011 and is expected to achieve the same for the year 2014-15, too.
Mark of appreciation
United States Patent and Trademark Office has issued a Patent (Patent number US 8,968,697 B2) to ONGC Energy Centre (OEC) Trust and Institute of Chemical Technology (ICT), Mumbai for innovative research work on ‘Hydrogen Production Method by Multi-step Copper-Chlorine Thermochemical Cycle.’ The ONGC Energy Centre Trust, set up by ONGC, has been pursuing a programme to develop innovative methods to generate hydrogen by splitting water thermo chemically and using heat, generated from solar or nuclear energy. Such methods involve carrying out a sequence of chemical reactions at high temperature (550 to 900 degree Celsius) that use metals, acids and water. There are challenges in development and integration of these complex chemical reactions at high temperature for which research is being pursued by many countries.
A step at a time
Bharat Heavy Electricals limited (BHEl) has achieved another milestone with the commissioning of the second 800 MW supercritical boiler at Sri Damodaram Sanjeevaiah Thermal Power Plant (SDSTPP) at Krishnapatnam in Nellore District of Andhra Pradesh. Significantly, this is the second 800 MW rating and also the highest rating (800 MW) indigenous boiler to be commissioned in the country. The first 800 MW boiler was commissioned earlier by BHEl at the same project in August, 2014. The commissioning of the two 800 MW boilers is an important development for India seeking to achieve self reliance and demonstrates BHEl’s capability in the area of supercritical technology which is expected to lower coal consumption. BHEl’s scope of work is expected to comprise of manufacturing, supplying, erecting, testing and commissioning of the boilers and associated auxiliaries. The key equipment for the project, has been manufactured by BHEl at its Trichy, Hyderabad, Ranipet and Bengaluru plant.
Safety measures
Bureau of Indian Standard has published Indian Standard (IS 16333 (Part 1): 2015) on ‘Mobile Phone Handsets Part 1 Safety Requirements.’ Mobile phone handset is being used by the cross section of consumers and BIS has developed this standard on mobile on the basis of inconsistent quality of product available in the open market and requests received from various ministries. Consumer interest in terms of safety and other requirements like battery, specific absorption ratio (SAR) for radiation, IEMI, et al, have been taken into account.
Clean drive
India Trade Promotion Organisation (ITPO) under Corporate Social Responsibility activities for the year 2014-15 contributed 38 lakh to the ‘Swachh Bharat Kosh’ of the Government of India. The amount was handed over to Vivek Joshi, administrator, Swachh Bharat Kosh, Ministry of Finance by V Kumar, general manager and FA, ITPO at North Block. Sanjay Aggarwal, director, Ministry of Finance and SR Sahoo, company secretary, ITPO were also present.