An article on Technology and Knowledge network
INDIAN EXPERIENCES IN CREATING TECHNOLOGY AND KNOWLEDGE NETWORKS IN DIFFERENT SECTORS
Y.S. Rajan
Technology Information, Forecasting and Assessment Council (TIFAC), New Delhi
Email: edtifac@tifac.org.in
KEYWORDS
India, technology, economy, development, technology strength, vision, roadmap, business opportunities, induction, innovation, mission, partnership, information, forecasting, assessment, knowledge network, traditional and mature industries .
ABSTRACT
India started liberalising its economy around mid-eighties albeit at a slow pace. In 1991 the liberalisation began with greater speed. The reform process has given greater opportunities for the Indian Industry to venture into newer areas. Also reduction of customs barriers and opening up of the economy for foreign investment and imports of goods, machinery and services in may sectors of economy have thrown up new challenges to the Indian business. There is a recognition of need for technological strengths. However, methods of acquiring the strengths vary. Some are yet to begin taking new approaches. Indian economy besides agriculture is still dominated by traditional and mature industries, though India has also its share of new IT based industries. These traditional and mature industries (TMI for short hereafter) are also important for the productive use of labour force. But if they do not innovate they may not be able to compete with imports and foreign investors. Such a situation could have a serious implication for the Indian economy and society.
Therefore, in addition to pursuing frontier technologies, there is a need to introduce all round innovation in all sectors of Indian Industries.
The work done by TIFAC (Technology Information, Forecasting and Assessment Council) since 1988 in this direction are described in specific reference to a few industrial sectors such as Sugar Industry, Construction and Transport sectors using composite materials and a few examples from the textile sector.
The paper describes the methodologies of approaching different sectors for forming “Knowledge†or “Innovation†networks, difficulties faced in actions, the results obtained, and multiplier effects, through a few case studies. Conclusions from these experiences are expected to be relevant not only for actions for other sectors in India but also other developing countries transitioning from the earlier forms of planned and protected industrial framework to a competitive frameworks. A few recent new initiatives by TIFAC are also explained.
INDIAN EXPERIENCES IN CREATING TECHNOLOGY AND KNOWLEDGE NETWORKS IN DIFFERENT SECTORS
Y.S. Rajan
Technology Information, Forecasting and Assessment Council (TIFAC), New Delhi
Email: edtifac@tifac.org.in
INTRODUCTION
A study of India’s scientific and technological scene can present many surprises and paradoxes. Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) with the help of Indian industries designs, develops and launches world class communications, meteorological and remote sensing satellites, Data from Indian Remote Sensing Satellites are being marketed world wide by an US Company EoSAT. Indian applications in remote sensing ranging from forestry, ground water targeting, to wasteland mapping are remarkable. Indian launch vehicles have recently launched a German and Korean Satellites. India has missiles designed and developed indigenously. So is its nuclear capability including for agricultural and medical applications. The green revolution launched in the sixties has made India self sufficient in food. India is the largest producer of milk in the world.
The industrial infrastructure built after independence in 1947 covers almost all sector; mining, extraction, power, road transport, aircraft, chemical, pharmaceutical, mechanical engineering, electrical and electronic goods. There are a vast array of small and tiny industries catering to various consumer goods and also providing supplies of ancillaries to bigger industries. In bio-technology and advanced materials area, there are a few good world class industries, in the private and public sectors. There is now an emerging vibrant business in the IT sector, with Bangalore in India being called ‘Silicon Valley’ and with several other cities following with speed. Almost all the essential drugs and vaccines are manufactured in India. There are also exports. But India’s total export commodities is only about 0.6 per cent of the world trade.
A closer look at the industrial sectors would, however, show an uneven state of technological sophistication. The slow process of liberalisation which began in 1985 did not expose Indian Industry to foreign competition. Most of them were used to import of mature and standardised technologies, often as turn key plants and equipments (both in the private and public sectors). They were not keen to add incremental innovations or to do further R&D for a new generation of products, processes or services. The protected economy along with high customs barriers for imports provided them with exceptionally safe environment. The quality movements of the mid-eighties and even now were / are concentrating more on the mechanics of organising the production lines and documentations within the company, rather than on doing research into basic reliability of the systems, components, processes etc. aiming at better performance specifications.
During 1991, the pace of liberalisation was more. Practically the licensing controls on expansion or opening of new industries, in most industrial categories, were removed. Foreigners were allowed to invest in most sectors. May of the existing traditional and mature industries which were profitable in the controlled economy with nearly administered or protected prices, started feeling the pressures of competition. Most of the companies which could afford, went in for modernisation through further import of new equipment. Some found it difficult because the exporting companies placed various restrictions on the importing Indian Company in terms of its export marketing and even on its domestic marketing, as these foreign companies themselves had an eye on the opening Indian markets and possible future investments in India. They wanted to safeguard themselves from the competition that may emerge from the importing Indian company. There are a number of cases where joint ventures of Indian companies arrived at during this period to get better management technology, have broken up and foreign companies have established direct 100% owned subsidiaries in the same product lines. The established and powerful Indian industry leaders started raising the question of “level playing field†against such foreign investment.
For the small and medium entreprises (SME’s) most of whom operate in the area of “mature†industry category (like metallurgy, manufacturing, electrical, chemical etc.), often however with obsolete technologies (or technologies and management techniques which are two or three decades old), have much serious problems in coping with the competition. In the earlier pre-liberalization regimes, bigger companies could “favour†a number of vendors with sub-contracts for parts. The present competition being severe on the bigger players as well, they rationalise their list of vendors; thus traditional assured markets for many SME’s are being eroded. In addition removal of a large number of products from the list of quantitative restrictions for imports (prevalent in the earlier pre-WTO regime) have further increased the competition in the domestic market from imports. Thus SME’s are in search of survival and new openings. Among other avenues, a number of them are also looking for technological upgradation.
Similarly for the traditional industries in the sugar, textile, and chemical areas, in addition to the domestic competitive pressures, there are also other external newer constraints imposed on them like strict enforcement of environmental laws. Also increase in power tariffs and fuel costs are also adding pressures to look for more energy efficient processes.
SEARCH FOR TECHNOLOGIES
Thus the externalities to the firms in traditional and mature industries (TMI) sectors are leading the Indian firms to look for technological up-gradation and search for technology development routes. However, their experience in technology management being limited, they are often not able to solve the problems by themselves. There are major international consultants who try to fill this gap. But often their services can be accessed by big Indian firms (industries) because of the costs. The SME’s and traditional industries still look for solutions through Indian national laboratories, technology entrepreneurs, Indian consultants, meetings arranged by apex Indian Industries associations like the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) etc. Government sponsored systems like Technology Information, Forecasting and Assessment Council (TIFAC), an autonomous body under the Department of Science and Technology, Technology Development Board (TDB), National Research & Development Corporation (NRDC), and Programme aimed at Technology Self Reliance (PATSER) scheme of Department of Scientific & Industrial Research (DSIR) provide avenues for technology scouting and softer finances to cover the technology development risks.
NETWORK FOR INNOVATION : TIFAC
TIFAC was established in 1988 as an autonomous body for generating technology forecasts and for assessing technologies in the Indian context. This was aimed to help Indian industries, institutions and entrepreneurs to learn to look ahead in technologies and take advance actions. TIFAC executed this mandate through a close network of various stakeholder industries, institutions and experts. Since then networks became powerful forums for interaction and exchange of ideas, experiences and vision of the future as well as a stimulating agent for actions. In response to the felt needs, TIFAC began to use such networks to stimulate actions in large number of areas ranging from agriculture to materials. They provide road maps and project possible technology linked business opportunities in the short, medium and long terms. A major countrywide technology foresight exercise involving 5000 experts was carried out during 1994-96 resulting in 25 documents called Technology Vision for India upto 2020. These cover areas where India has comparative advantages and where core strength can be profitably tapped. They include TMI and the newly emerging industries as well.
TIFAC took several steps to stimulate actions for technology induction and innovation in industries broadly on the lines stipulated as road maps in the TMs, TF/TA and Technology Vision 2020 reports. Some of the details have been reported at the third International Conference on Technology Policy and Innovation held at Austin, Texas, USA (1999) by the author (Reference 1). Actions to stimulate innovation in Indian industries began during 1990 and continue even today. TIFAC is now recognised by many stakeholders in industry, institutions and Government departments as a reality of knowledge network in action. TIFAC implements several technological missions such as Sugar Technology Mission (STM), Advanced Composite Mission (ACM), Fly Ash Utilisation Mission (FAM).
TIFAC, with government funds, also began in 1992 a programme called Home Grown Technology (HGT) projects. These aim to stimulate development of commercialisable technologies in the early part of innovative cycle. This programme was specially started to create a momentum to close the hiatus existing between R&D and commercial operations be it in the private or public sectors. The nature of the hiatus is described by the author elsewhere (Reference 2or3). The experiences and results over 12 years were reported in a seminar on February 10-11, 2000 marking the completion of 12th year of TIFAC (Reference 4). This paper describes and analyses through case studies, the experiences in creating the knowledge networks and actions in a few TMI’s. An attempt is also made to draw a few general conclusions that may be useful for India and other developing countries.
Recognising the importance of TIFAC’s role in creating a technology Vision for India upto 2020, providing technology road map in 16 sectors to achieve the objective of total eradication of poverty by year 2020 as well as to have a prosperous economy and a secure society by that year, and also recognising its successes in stimulating actions in industrial and agricultural sectors, the Indian Finance Minister in his budget speech on 29 February, 2000 for the year 2000-2001 has announced an addition of Indian Rupees 50 Crores (US dollar 11.11millions) to pursue such actions.
In pursuance to this focussed action on five areas have been finalised by the TIFAC Council during March 2000 : agriculture & agro food sector, road construction and transportation equipment and upgradation of textile machinery, services and maintenance of health care equipment, upgradation of science and engineering colleges. In addition a sixth area provides for a set of advanced areas and innovative systems. This paper will also briefly describe the plans being proposed. International players can also find a niche to work with the Indian industries under these programmes.
STIMULATING INNOVATIONS IN TMI’S – CASES FROM SUGAR INDUSTRY
As explained in the earlier sections, the planned and protected economy in itself was not conducive for technology innovations in the firms, either from the demand side or from the supply side of national laboratories and academic institutions. Such an inertia is more in traditional industries since they consider themselves mature and stabilized. They feel there is no further scope for improvement.
Indian Sugar sector belonged to one such category. Due to its agro-climatic conditions India had a bountiful of sugar cane production, dating back to a hoary past. In ancient Indian literature in different languages, as well as in religious and cultural practices, sugar cane and derived products are often referred and it is an integral part of Indian life. Sugar cane is chewed and the juice enjoyed in the direct form even today by most Indians. Sugar cane juice freshly extracted and sold in markets. Other forms of derived products are jaggery, khandsari sugar etc, which are derived by traditional forms of boiling the juice.
The modern method of sugar extraction came to India in 1903. A brief report about its growth, the technology forecasting and assessment studies conducted by TIFAC since 1989 are reported in an earlier paper to this conference by the author. (Reference 1 and also see Reference 4). This paper reports in brief the detailed time-events involved in stimulating innovations through three case studies by the Sugar Technology Mission (STM) implemented by TIFAC with the overall support of Ministry of Food and Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India. STM itself uses two tracks for its massive demonstrative exercises. One track is system upgradation of the existing sugar mills through optimisation of different segments of the processing equipment to improve efficiencies of extraction and energy efficiency. The role of STM is that of a systems engineer and that of Sugar Development Fund (SDF) operated by Ministry of Food, is to provide special loans for such projects. The second track is to experiment at the plant scale level, relatively new technologies to improve certain specific parameters. This track is to introduce innovative processes or new technologies.
The three case studies belong to the second track. In these cases, STM of TIFAC funds about 50% of the project cost through refundable soft loans for the first plant and the entrepreneur (technology providing firm). The first plant takes the risk of first experimentation. The entrepreneur has the risk of technology upscaling. After success (which is not without failures and later corrected systems) the entrepreneur starts the multiplier process. The goal of STM is to speed up the process. For the second, third etc. factories or plants which use these new technologies, since they are proven (before them) recently and they adopt faster. They do not get any financial support from STM except technical advice and support when required. Thus, the replication process depends purely based on commercial decisions by the sugar mills (and the market driven innovations). After five years of successful operations by STM, the multiplier effects have started speedily. The following three case studies may be seen. The author thanks Mr. J.J. Bhagat, Mission Director, STM/TIFAC for providing information and detailed insight.
CASE STUDY – 1 : THIN FILM SULPHUR BURNER
Clarification of sugarcane juice to remove impurities is an important process step which determines sugar recovery and quality. Clarification is carried out using lime and sulphurdioxide (SO2) gas. Conventionally Indian Sugar industry has been using manually operated pool type sulphur burners for SO2 generation which are inefficient due to semi manual operation, lack of proper control/instrumentation, resulting in wastage of sulphur and resulting in poor clarification. To identify & develop a suitable design of sulphur burner to overcome these problems was among the important projects of TIFAC (STM). STM succeeded in developing a new Thin Film Sulphur Burner which has proved very beneficial to the industry. The various stages in the development process – from concept to commercialisation of the system, are summarised as under:
May, 1994 to June, 1995
The concept of continuous sulphur generation in accordance with process demands was firmed up. An entrepreneur (Engineers India, Ghaziabad) with a design of atomised sulphur burner was identified. Technical presentation was made to the Sugar Mission Advisory Committee.
July, 1995 to September, 1995
Upper Doab Sugar Mills, Shamli was identified for conducting field trials of the system on plant scale. Organisational modalities were completed. Tripartite agreement for development and trials of the new sulphur burner was formalised.
October, 1995 to December, 1995
Design, fabrication assembly and erection of the system in Upper Doab Sugar Mills, Shamli, was completed.
January, 1996 to June 1996
Trials of the system were conducted. The trials failed to establish the system due to design deficiencies and operational failure. The entrepreneur eventually lost interest. The sugar factory also became hesitant and apprehensive about the project. STM experts however, closely studied the trials and the results and recommended that the project should be pursued further with modifications, despite the failed trials.
July, 1996 to December, 1996
Efforts were made to locate another entrepreneur. The design concept was revised from the atomised sulphur burning to film burning as adapted in chemical plants, which turned out to be more appropriate for the scale required. M/s Digital Utilities were identified to collaborate in development of the Thin Film Sulphur Burner. Upper Doab Sugar Mills, agreed to continue with the project after good amount of convincing by TIFAC/STM.
January, 1997 to May, 1997
The design of Thin Film Sulphur Burner developed, engineered and installed at the factory. Initial trials conducted. Results were satisfactory.
October, 1997 to May, 1998
Performance trials continued on plant scale to establish commercial operation and enable fine-tuning. Good results obtained and the system was declared techno commercially successful.
June, 1998 to June, 2000
The system is now replicated in 22 sugar factories and is operating successfully. Replication is continuing. The factories are deriving benefits of automatic operation, regulated sulphur feed rate, SO2 generation in accordance with process demands. Net commercial benefits are: high recovery, better sugar quality and saving of expensive chemicals (SO2 and lime.
Four years were taken from initial intent to first successful techno-commercial demonstration. In the next two years replication was very fast.
Replication Trend (After the trials)
Within first year : 10
Within second year : 12
CASE STUDY –2 : PLC BASED CONTROL SYSTEM
Pulsating juice flow, manually regulated liming and sulphitation have been chronic ills of Indian sugar factories. Problems are further compounded because liming and sulphitation go hand-in-hand and because SO2 is generated in another section. As a result clarification efficiencies have been poor resulting in high sugar losses, poor quality and adverse effect on downstream processes. To overcome these difficulties, TIFAC initiated a project for trials of Programmable Logic Control (PLC) system for regulation of juice flow, lime flow and sulphitation.
January, 1994 to June, 1994
Proposals for Integrated Clarification Control System were received and scrutinized. The proposals of Energy Ventures, New Delhi was approved by Sugar Mission Advisory Committee.
July, 1994 to July, 1995
M/s Upper Doab Sugar Mills, Shamli was identified for conducting the trials. The project was re-evaluated with revisions and modifications and was discussed in detail. Organisational modalities completed. Tripartite agreement for development and trials of the system were formalized between TIFAC/STM, Upper Doab Sugar Mills, Shamli and M/s Energy Ventures, New Delhi.
August, 1995 to January, 1996
Engineering, procurement, assembly and erection of the system completed. M/s Energy Ventures, New Delhi with their extensive experience in instrumentation and automation for sugar manufacturing, proceeded methodically and in a well planned manner. The system was commissioned in January, 1996. Regular performance monitoring was conducted.
February, 1996 to April, 1996
Trials continued. Though the system operated, problems such as drift in pH measurement, scaling of pH electrodes, mechanical problems in valve positioner, lime proportionating unit and distribution plate were encountered.
May, 1996 to March, 1998
Software of the control system was modified. A device for prevention of scale in the pH electrodes was identified, tried and established. The system delivered good performance after the problems were overcome and was declared techno commercially successful.
It took four years since 1994 to demonstrate first techno-commercial success. Speedy replication is taking place for the past 2 years.
April,1988 to June, 2000
Replicated in more than 10 sugar factories by now. Replication is continuing.
Replication, 1988 to June, 2000
Within first year : 2
Within second year : 3
Within third year : 5
CASE STUDY – 3 : SYRUP TREATMENT SYSTEM
The conventional Double Sulphitation process for juice clarification as employed in various sugar Mills in the country, makes extensive use of SO2 content in commercial sugar, sugar inversion in the process and corrosion of various plant and equipment. The commercial sugar so produced contains higher ash content and higher ICUMSA colour value. The keeping quality of this sugar is also low. In the Double Sulphitation process, there is very little removal of turbidity (colloidal or suspended solids) and soluble polysaccharides. Further there is no removal of coloring matters. Only bleaching, only bleaching takes place.
Therefore, Sugar Technology Mission decided to conduct trials of a separate Syrup Treatment system which can be retrofitted to the existing Double Sulphitation process and still will be able to produce superior quality sugar at minimum cost. In this endeavour, STM had earlier introduced the new technology, “Separate clarification of Vacuum Filtrate†which partly fulfills the objectives of better clarification of juice. Blanco Directo Process was identified as a suitable process. This process is the combination of (i) Separate Clarification of Vacuum Filtrate and (ii) Treatment of unsulphured syrup using phospho floatation process. The 1st part of the technology i.e. Separate Clarification of Vacuum filtrate was tried successfully in a Sugar factory by STM.
May, 1996 – October, 1996
The proposal of M/s Diftech Agencies & Exports based on know-how from M/s Novatch Salvador was accepted for field trials by the Sugar Mission Advisory Committee, after detailed presentation and discussions.
M/s Balrampur Chini Mills Ltd, indicated their interest in improving their process to produce superior quality sugar and approached STM to conduct the trials of Blanco Directo Process. The factory installed the system “Separate Clarification of Vacuum Filtrate†out of their own resources and STM agreed to support the trials of Syrup Treatment System.
Accordingly, a tripartite agreement was signed in June, 1996 between Balrampur Chini Mills Ltd., Babhnan, Diftech Agencies & Exports and STM.
November, 1996 to December, 1996
M/s Diftech Agencies & Exports supplied the equipment & machinery and erected the system at site, as per agreement.
January, 1997 to March 1997
During initial trials, problems were faced due to erratic supply to syrup to the system and also due to foaming of syrup. The problems were overcome with minor modifications and in subsequent trials, better result was achieved i.e.
- Purity rise in syrup of 1.5 units
- Viscosity was reduced
- Suspended impurities removal by 80+%
- Sugar colour was maintained
It took only one year to create since 1996 a successful demonstration. The technology has been replicated in 12 sugar factories. It should be noted by 1996, the STM has attained a special stature which is discussed in the later part of this paper.
Replication trend (After the trials)
Within first year : 3
Within second year : 4
Within third year : 5
ANALYSIS AND COMMENTS ON SUGAR INDUSTRY CASES
The cases indicated above point out that about that 1 to 1 ½ years are required to have the partners together to begin the project at the start of STM as organised activity. The entrepreneur whose main task is to use technologies (her own or purchased from elsewhere) is often not able to do by herself especially when the level of technologies is such that several experiments are required. A professional team with technology and management skills like STM/TIFAC is required to being together various actors involved (a) A user sugar mill – a TDI (b) Entrepreneur holding the technology, not yet a turn key product (c) other experts who can review and give ideas to solve the problems in the first experiment and (d) the future user actors (i.e other sugar mills) who will place further orders on the entrepreneurs on a commercial basis which alone can help the entrepreneurs to have a sustained business and profit. The role of network of STM/TIFAC, with its earlier sustained work done for the sugar industry (Reference 1&4 ), the reputation it has earned by several successful projects, the reach it has with the country’s experts from all sectors, and the dedicated STM mission team with an experienced sugar industry technologist – professional as the Mission Director, seems to be essential and vital as a gathering and binding force for many such actors. Otherwise entry of innovative experiments within the TDI would be much more difficult. The multiplier effects post – experimental / demonstration phase, for the above three cases as well as other projects in STM not reported here show the promise that speedy commercial pull for successful innovative technology projects are taking place within TDI. Though one cannot be very conclusive, the shorter time period exhibited in the last of the three case which was initiated in 1996 indicates that the maturity of handling the networks by STM and others has grown and there is also a desire to move fast in the light of other successes. It is also noteworthy that this network also provides an avenue of relevant innovative technologies from other countries as well, as can be seen from the Case –3.
EXPERIENCE FROM TWO OTHER MISSION PROJECTS
The experience with inducting technologies in the road construction, brick making and developing other non-wood building components (doors etc) using fly ash from the coal fired power stations under the Fly Ash Utilisation Mission (FAM) which began on 1994, on the similar lines of STM as well as the experience in introduction the use of composites (jute based, fibre glass etc.) for railways, doors in houses and offices, orthopedic biomedical devices etc. under Advanced Composite Mission (ACM) are on similar lines to that of STM.
The magnitude of the problems in introducing these technologies for commercial use in these TMI’s can be gauged from the following facts. When TIFAC did detailed forecasting and assessment studies in 1992, India’s annual use of fly ash was well under 3% of the total annual production of about 50 million tonnes of fly ash. FAM started during 1994 creating networks, as did STM. Now the annual use of fly ash has gone up to 13% of the annual fly ash production of 100 million tonnes. Multiplier effects are accelerating as many technologies, procedures and standards have been stabilized and accepted by a large number of users (Reference 4) A good network has set in and is growing. .
Similarly in composites area, while India is good at aerospace applications, it is far below the world standards in use of composites because in the commercial civilian sectors their use is very poor. For example, according to a recent statistics in USA per capital annual consumption of composites is 5.6 Kg; China 1.5 Kg; India 35 gram ! The efforts involved in energising TDI’s which can use this material, is therefore not small. The recent successes of ACM in networking, developing and demonstrating products is increasing many applications (see Reference 4) with the coverage of many TDI’s.
CASE FROM NON-MISSION PROJECTS
While missions have a focus on a specific sector and high visibility, it is also necessary to use the TIFAC network for smaller projects in different areas. This is done through Home Grown Technology Programmes (Reference 1&4). About 50 projects are underway. A few of them are commercially successful now and seveal others reaching the stages of techno-commercial demonstration. Only one case is illustrated here.
CASE : “Hi-performance synthetic substitute for kerosene in pigment printing†by Ahmedabad Textile Industry Research Association (ATIRA), Ahmedabad
In pigment printing industry (a decentralised sector) lakhs (i.e 100,000’s) of litres of kerosene is used to made kerosene-water emulsion for making printing paste. At present kerosene is being used in large quantities by the decentralised pigment printing sector. After use, it is evaporated off into the atmosphere, leading to localized pollution problem. Hence ATIRA took the initiative and has developed a partial substitute. There was a need to make the process 100% kerosene free. The project was therefore taken up under Home Grown Technology of TIFAC during 1993-96 under the guidance of a Monitoring Committee chaired by an eminent professor in textile technology from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi. Other members were from M/s Arvind Mills, a leader in textiles, Ahmedabad Univerity, Department of Chemical technology, Mumbai and a dyeing Master.
The technology has been developed from a bench scale level (5 kg batches). In case of kerosene-water emulsion after printing, both can be evaporated off into the atmosphere. Only binder & pigment remain. But in case of synthetic substitute developed by ATIRA, the minute amounts of polymer used will also remain in the cloth. So the challenge was in achieving the print quality equal to kerosene emulsion medium. After a lot of efforts ATIRA has successfully achieved good results and has developed a synthetic substitute having the desirable properties (Washing, rubbing fastness, brightness, bending properties of cloth etc.) There are mainly four products available internationally and the ATIRA technology is equal or better, as per our laboratory and text6ile Mill trails. The synthetic substitute is cost-effective and environment friendly. Mill trails (600 metres) have been conducted with excellent results at Arvind Mills which are acceptable to users (dyeing masters at mills). During the course of development there were also other non-technical problems such as a possible collapse of the market for such products. The project team however, sustained in action and TIFC stood by them.
After the successful development of the technology at the bench level, (in 1997) TIFAC and ATIRA concentrated in finding out industries which would be interested to commercialize this technology. These efforts succeeded when M/s Gunjan Paints, Ahmedabad came forward. The technology was transferred to M/s Gunjan Paints, Ahmedabad, who has started limited commercial production and the product was brought to the market in March 99 by the company. Since there is large market within the country as well as good export demand, TIFAC, through its Patent Facilitating Centre, conducted a thorough patent search and helped ATIRA filing patent applications in India and different South Asian countries. The technology has already been patented in the Srilanka.
For commercialisation of the product in a much larger scale, M/s Gunjan Paints Ltd. approached the Technology Development Board (TDB) for financial assistance which has been approved. Thus, the process to spread to large scale has started. Now it is a question of marketing, which is not considered difficult as the firm is one of the market leaders for this product. This project is an example of the successful traversing of a technology route through the different stages of the innovation cycle and with different institutions contributing into the efforts.
Under the HGT, there is another product: farmer friendly diagnostic kits for cattle and poultry, developed by a non-profit, non-government institution called Bharatiya Agro Industries Foundaion (BAIF), Pune. It developed within three years the successful product and it is being marketed by M/s Hoechst.
The general experience of HGT projects is that from the initial intent to successful techno-commercial demonstration takes about 3 to 4 years and pick off later varies with segments. The question of marketing strengths for the firms and institutions become crucial to rapid multiplier effort. This phase requires funding which is not available in many Government schemes and are often outside the “radar screens†of banks as these are small projects. When a big industry like Hoechst shows interest things move fast. But often there are many products which may not fall in this category but still there is a dispersed demand and consumption in the country. HGT/TIFAC is addressing these issues so that many TDI’s in SME sectors can learn to master innovation cycles to introduce successful commercial products.
VISION 2020 MISSION PROJECTS
Encouraged by the successes in TIFAC Missions and HGT, and in order to realise the vision of developed India by the year 2020, the Government has made special additional allocation of funds being the financial year 2000-2001. These are mainly aimed at increasing productivity in low end farming sector in eastern India and Central Indian through “Seed to System approach†including select mechanisation; improving quality in milk production at the small milk producer level through induction of appropriate mechanised milking and chilling systems; production of road building and repair equipment for fast expanding infrastructure development; innovation in textile machinery etc. All these interventions are in the TDI’s and to stimulate all round market driven industrial innovations in them. In order to cope up with the supply of creative talents, one of the missions aims at incentivising select colleges to orient their courses to combine excellence and relevance. For more details see TIFAC website : www.tifac.org.in and reference 4.
This initiative is also open to foreign institutions and industries who are ready to partner in these projects. Their interest should be based on the fact that successes in these projects are likely to expand Indian market for productivity enhancing technologies.
CONCLUSION
On the whole it is clear that the TIFAC type of networking is essential for stimulating innovation in TDI’s in India, as the transition from a protected economic regime has to deal with earlier institutional weaknesses. This network should also involve knowledge oriented and technology – business linked forecasting and assessment studies to be effective. Knowledge network should be used to create demonstrable success stories. Part government financial support for innovative projects as done by the Missions and HGT programme is also essential to incentivise the TDI’s to take risks with which they are not familiar in concept as well as in project management. The situation in India in this connection is somewhat closer to the case described about the innovation and east German transformation (Reference 5). Selective Government intervention and support especially to develop internal strengths in technology management may be required through a complete business cycle, say about a decade, in many traditional and mature industrial sectors in India. Once they have gone through a full cycle, it is likely that they would have internalised all aspects of managing foresight, assessment and actions for being competitive. As can be seen from the case studies, successes tend to replicate faster after the first success in a project or a product. Further researches into the mechanisms for such transitions and the support policy frameworks would be useful for many other countries as well.
Acknowledgement :
The views expresses are personal. The author is thankful to his colleagues from TIFAC especially Mr. J.J. Bhagat of STM, Mr. Sajid Mubashir and Dr. Goel of HGT, Mr. S. Biswas of ACM.
References
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5. Frank Fleischer and kunt Hornschild, Innovation and the East German Transformation, in Industrial Competitiveness in East-Central Europe ed by Martin Myant, Edward Elgar, UK