NCL aims at total digitization by 2010

PUNE: The prestigious National Chemical Laboratory (NCL) based at Pune, has drawn up a major IT road map to meet global competition. " It is the need of the hour. By 2010, all laboratory processes will be digitized," S Sivaram, director, NCL said.

Announcing the setting up of a new digital information resource center (DIRC) and a separate combi-chem-bio resource center on the laboratory premises next year, he said that these initiatives have been aimed at speeding up research work at the laboratory, besides providing a platform to private firms and other laboratories.

The Rs 11 crore resource center would be the only one of its kind on the country that use IT to create hundreds of chemical compounds in a single day. Sivaram said that the Rs 18 crore DIRC would provide walk-in access to researchers, academicians and students to the vast information resources at NCL.

"The combi-chem-bio resource center, which would allow private entrepreneurs and pharma companies to take up independent research, would become operational in January 2003, while the digital center would start functioning mid-next year," he said. Sivaram said that computers at the resource center would be programmed to allow synthesis of chemical compounds of different mixtures simultaneously.

"This will speed up research work," he said, adding that 50 percent of the expenses for the research center would be provided by the parent body Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). The DIRC, when fully functional would provide information resources to one and all, anytime, anywhere. "Efforts will be made to develop tools and standards for digitalization of archives and metadata, besides data mining and knowledge management," Sivaram said.

"In the next three years, we will be spending another Rs 10 crore on IT," Sivaram said, pointing out that the idea was to archive all information available in the laboratory. "We intend to complete this process by 2010," he informed.