NEWS

Lockheed-Ficci Innovation growth programme firms up more deals
By UNI, August 05, 2008

Mumbai, Aug 5 (UNI): Second year into operation, the Lockheed Martin- Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) India Innovation Growth programme today firmed up nine new deals giving Innovation India a big boost.

The immense success of the programme had led Lockheed Martin to extend it for two more years, with the Department of Science and Technology of the Union Government also chipping in its support.

The proud lady of the deal-signing event today had been Dr Chandrika Varadachari of the Raman Centre for Applied and Interdisciplinary Sciences as her centre firmed up four of the nine deals relating to commercial production and distribution of acid activated water insoluable micronutrient fertilisers, whose field trials had shown enhancement of production between 11 and 59 per cent.

Speaking on the occasion, she said two more deals were in the pipeline and she was looking ahead for a global reach of the fertiliser she had developed in her Kolkota-based Centre. While two of the deals pertained to Indian companies, two others were from US- based companies.

She told UNI that these fertilisers were produced by simple methods using cheap raw materials and at low energy costs. The current US market alone was above USD 600 million and the Indian market over Rs 1,000 crore.