The Research and Development and Scientific Division of Tata Steel has been conferred the prestigious “Technology Day Meritorious Invention Award” from National Research and Development Corporation (NRDC) at a glittering function held at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi. Honourable President of India Mr APJ Abdul Kalam was the Chief Guest of the function and Mr Kapil Sibal, Honourable Minister of State for Science, Technology and Ocean Development, presided over the function, who also presented the award.

The function was organised jointly by the National Research and Development of Biotechnology (DBT). Tata Steel is the only Company in the Eastern region to get this award out of ten NRDC awards. The award was presented to Dr Ananya Mukhopadhyay, Dr Sudipta Sikdar, Mr Saurabh Kundu and Mr Ashwin Pandit of Tata Steel for their extraordinary invention on the development of the “On-line Property Prediction System for Hot Rolled Coil (OPPRESS)”. The joint award carries a cash amount and individual Certificates. and presided over the function.

The OPPRESS system would predict mechanical properties of Hot Rolled (HR) coils produced from the Hot Strip Mill (HSM) of the Steel Plants over the length and also through the thickness of the coil in real-time. The system not only reduces the delay the time involved in testing, as the test results are available online but also produces good quality coils at cheaper cost. One unit of the system is already in functioning at the HSM of Tata Steel.

These awards are given to recognise those inventors whose innovative ideas help change the quality of lives of the millions of people in India. Along with other awards given by Technology Development Board, Department of Biotechnology and National Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board, the National Research and Development Corporation presented Technology Day Awards 2004 to ten meritorious inventions.

Also participated in the function. Amongst other dignitaries, Dr RA Mashelkar, Director-General, CSIR, Prof V S Ramamurthy, Secretary, Biotechnology, Dr R Natarajan, Chairman (CM), All India Council for Technical Education, Mr NK Sharma, MD, National Research Development of Science and Technology were present in the occasion.