Dr.K.V. Raghavan

It is doubtful if Dr. G. Thyagarajan could have achieved the spectacular results in implementing various projects of CLRI without the active co-operation of Dr. K.V. Raghavan, Deputy Director of the Central Leather Research Institute. On the retirement of Dr. G. Thyagarajan in February 1994 he became Director. Dr. Raghavan, though new to leather when he joined CLRI has shown that leather manufacture is also a part of chemical engineering. It is his conviction that if leather industry has to come up to the level of the developed Countries, it should be able to adopt and adapt modern technology, Computer technology robotic science etc. He has installed many of these in CLRI.

Dr. Raghavan was born on 1st October 1943. He heads the division of Engineering Sciences and is the Hony. Professor of Anna University. He did his B.Tech in Chemical Engineering at Osmania University in 1964; M.S and Ph.D from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. He joined CSIR service in 1964 at the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, Hyderabad. He took over as Assistant Director at Regional Research Laboratory, Jorhat in December 1975 and served for 11 years before joining CLRI.

Dr. K.V. Raghavan has more than 50 research applications to his credit. He is a recognised research guide at IIT Kharagpur, IIT Madras, Anna University Madras and Jadhavpur Univeristy, Calcutta. He is the recipient of the Hindustan lever Award (1988) for the most outstanding chemical engineer; NRDC invention promotion award (1989).

He has visited UK, USA, USSR, France, Italy, Sweden, The Netherlands, Hungary, Caribbean countries, Egypt, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and other countries under Commonwealth, UN and other bilateral programmes of Government of India. He has many plans to make CLRI as world’s number one modern institution. There is no doubt he will achieve this ambition during his directorship.He died on 12th October 2017