Respected Chief Guest, Shri Habib Hussain, Chairman of CLE, Our Guest of Honour, Shri D Senthil Murugan, Managing Director, Shakthi Footwear, Prof Dr K V Raghavan, INAE Distinguished Professor, Chairman of our Research Council, former Director of CLRI and IICT, Hyderabad, who has readily agreed to preside over the function and deliver the Foundation Day Lecture within a very short notice, my senior colleague Mr D Chandramouli, Scientist G & Head, IDLS-PIU and Economics, Distinguished Representatives of the Leather and other Sectors, Friends from Media, Invited Guests, former and present Colleagues of CLRI and CSIR, respected teachers and my dear beloved students, Ladies and Gentlemen!
Good Morning and very warm welcome to all of you.
The seed sown by Dr Sir A Lakshmanaswamy Mudaliar, the then Vice-Chancellor of Madras University to start a degree course in leather technology with the help of the Government of Madras in September 1945 is very significant. In December 1945, Prof B M Das, the then Chairman of the Leather Research Committee of BSIR observed that the leather industry is no way of less importance than any other industry and badly needs research for its efficiency and progress. That is how CLRI came to be established in Madras on 24th April, 1948 where there is a University and an atmosphere for scientific research with Academic-Research-Industry linkage. Therefore, we have all assembled here today to celebrate our CLRI's Foundation Day in glorious fashion and very simple manner.
CLRI has been nurtured by eminent people. The sixty years of journey has placed CLRI in an orbit of excellence. The awards received by our colleagues reassure that we are positioned in the right place in the global arena.
CLRI is marching towards creating an internationally acclaimed design centre for product development. Since leather processing is moving towards biological options, a centre of excellence in biological sciences is going to be created at a cost of Rs.15 crores. Needless to mention, many of our research outputs in the area of biological sciences have resulted in transfer of technologies in the field of clinical and medical applications.
In the environmental front, CLRI will be the nodal agency in implementing various projects for the wastewater treatment in leather sector. I am glad to keep you informed that the pilot facility for zero emission research initiative for leather processing (ZERIL) created at CLRI has made significant progress in establishing similar efforts at commercial level in tanneries.
The Regional Centres of CLRI will be modernized and established with state-of-art facilities for testing to the overall betterment of the sector.
CLRI is recognized as a certifying agency for all the Human Resource Development related activities for the leather sector and I am very happy to mention that there will be an official announcement soon. There will be a separate cell like IDLS/PIU in CLRI to be set up with the support of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
There will be many more success stories to follow. Let us all join together in making our dreams come true. Team CLRI will certainly raise to the occasion in realizing the dream with the motto "Awake and Arise". I assure the industry once again that we are with you and will be with you in serving the nation. An Archive of CLRI Events since 1948 has been compiled as "CLRI into Hall of Fame", and will be released today. A CD version of important events in CLRI in the form of Photo Gallery named as "CLRI Photo Story" will also be released today.
With these few words, I once again welcome you all to this august gathering.
Thank you very much.
Jai Hind.
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