VP declares CHEMCON open

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 27

The lack of experienced faculty, outdated syllabus and poor infrastructure, especially in technical institutes, is a big challenge for the expansion of higher education in the country.

Vice-President M Hamid Ansari, who is also the Panjab University Chancellor, stated this while inaugurating the sixty-seventh annual session of the Chemical Engineering Congress (CHEMCON) at the varsity today.

In order to make the youth employable by endowing them with necessary knowledge, the Vice-President stressed the need to provide best environment and required resources to them at the educational institutes.

The four-day prestigious international conference is being organised by the Chandigarh Regional Centre, Indian Institute of Chemical Engineers, in collaboration with Dr SS Bhatnagar University Institute of Chemical Engineering and Technology, PU. The event is being organised on the theme “Chemical Engineering — Emerging Dimensions and Challenges Ahead”.

Quoting statistics from the Planning Commission’s paper, Ansari said the Indian chemical industry was worth $108 billion and accounted for approximately seven per cent of the GDP in 2010. The chemical sector accounted for around 14 per cent in the overall index of industrial production, he said.

“The share of industry in national exports is around 11 per cent, and in terms of volume, the country is the third-largest producer of chemicals in Asia, after China and Japan,” said the Vice-President.

Ansari said despite its large size and significant contribution to the GDP, Indian chemicals industry represented only around three per cent of the global chemicals.

“This suggests that much more needs to be done to bring our chemical industry to the desired level in terms of size, technology and products, given our aspiration to emerge as a high technology manufacturing hub in the world,” he said.

PU Vice-Chancellor Prof Arun Kumar Grover, in his address, said that scientific meetings, such as CHEMCON, were important for the university as these provided avenues to sustain and improve its competitiveness among the national and international peer institutes.

Punjab Governor and UT Administrator Shivraj V Patil, Haryana Governor Kaptan Singh Solanki and Punjab Minister of Industries and Commerce Madan Mohan Mittal also spoke on the occasion.