Council of Scientific and Industrial Research

The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research or CSIR was established in 1942. It provides scientific and technology inputs to a wide range of industries. Its research and development activities cover a whole range of fields such as aerospace engineering, ocean sciences, metallurgy molecular biology, mining, food, petroleum, leather and environment.  

CSIR claims that productivity savings through its services are around Rs.2,000 crore. It tests about 15,000 samples and products, trains 2,000 personnel and provides technical assistance to around 1,000 units every year.

CSIR's goals for year 2001

• to self finance most of its activities by generating Rs.7,000 crore from outside sources
• to develop a minimum of ten exclusive and globally competitive technologies
• to hold about 500 patents in its patent bank
• recover atleast ten per cent of its operational expenditure from intellectual property licensing
• earn $40 million annually from overseas research and development activities and services

CSIR's partial list of clients include US companies such as General Electric, American Cyanamid, Boeing Corporation, Abbot Laboratories, FMC Corporation, Genencor Inc., E I Du Pont and Parke Davis, Canadian company Locweld Inc., French Arko Pharma Laboratories, Dutch Akzo Chemicals, Danish Novo Nordisk, Finnish Neste Oy and Hong Kong's Peroxygen Technologies Ltd.

In terms of science and technology, CSIR has a few firsts in the world, which are listed below:

• Centchroman is a non-steroidal, oral, once-a-week female contraceptive
• manufacturing adepic acid through a single step process including catalyst
• Linear alkyl benzene using green technology
• infant food using buffalo milk
• flowering and seeding of tissue cultured bamboo
• discovery of 'Seminal Plasmin', one of the smallest protein molecules
• discovery of 'Chainia', the smallest molecular micro organism by weight.

CSIR's facilities
CSIR has world class facilities for testing products and equipment used in pharmaceuticals, engineering, chemical technology, leather and several other industries.

CSIR's R&D
CSIR provides research and development in the following fields:

• aerospace engineering
• bio sciences and bio technology
• chemistry and chemical technology
• drugs and pharmaceuticals
• food technologies
• leather
• electronics and instrumentation
• consutruction
• petroleum
• coal
• mining
• machinery and equipment
• environment
• earth, ocean and atmospheric sciences

CSIR's contribution
CSIR claims that industrial production based on its technologies in India is worth Rs.30,000 crore. It also does $3 million worth of foreign research and development business every year.

CSIR profile

• It is an autonomous body
• Prime Minister of India is the president of the CSIR Society
• It has 40 laboratories and 80 field and extension centres spread throughout the country
• It has 25,000 employees
• Its r&d infrastructure is valued at around Rs.10,000 crore
• It has an annual budget of Rs.5,000 crore
• More than 1,200 CSIR technologies are commercially exploited
• CSIR publishes around 2,000 scientific papers every year
• It files 250 patents per year
• It has bilateral scientific collaboration with 35 countries
• It supports 4,200 research fellows and associates per year.