IRMRA
Indian Rubber Manufacturers Research Association was set up with the initial support from Industry. Many equipment were donated by different companies to the Institute. IRMRA was set up with the aim to serve the rubber industry by carrying out development and testing work which will be helpful to the medium and small rubber units. Later the institute was set up in own premises at Wagle Industrial Estate, Thane near Bombay where it continues still, albeit at a much larger scale.
While talking about IRMRA a name always comes up, that is of Mr. Lalit Mohan Jamnadas or popularly known as LMJ. I was associated with IRMRA at a later stage during Bayer India days as a committee member for running of IRMRA. After some years IRMRA was taken over by the Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Govt. of India, which provided much needed fund for the progress of IRMRA as the industry was not forthcoming with such fund. Unfortunately, IRMRA was never free from internal bickering and politics & groupism which continues till date. My association with IRMRA, despite all politics, still continuing in some form. Initially the conference organized by IRMRA used to attract lot of interest among rubber fraternity and was actively participated. This has diluted over the years. Incidentally IRMRA is having its Golden Jubilee Year in 2008-2009. Unfortunately, IRMRA neither could deliver the desired results for the benefit of the rubber industry nor made serious impact in the field. Tyre industry never participated nor supported in IRMRA activities.
ISI / BIS & ISO
Indian Standard Institute is the national organization for Standardization in all field of the country. The name was later days changed to Bureau of Indian Standards ( BIS). Bayer India actively participated in Standardization activity of ISI which later became BIS. On behalf of Bayer India Ltd., I was member of different Rubber & Textile ( PCDC-13, 14 & 16 ) Committees and Sub-Committees and later became Convenor and Chairman of corresponding Committee.
After some years I participated in International Standards Organization ( ISO ) activity of TC 45 (Rubber Committee ) representing the country for over a decade and was the Convenor and later Chairman of the SC -2 / TC 45, Methods of Testing Committee. This was the golden era (1980’s & early 90’s) of Standardization activity of BIS and India at international level in Rubber field , holding Secretariat and contributing effectively. Mr. Saxena, Director, PCD of BIS was active with us for ISO work. I represented and participated in ISO meetings over the years held in different countries all over the world during this decade – Yugoslavia ( Dubrovnik ) , Italy ( Milan ), USA ( Boston ), France ( Paris ), Germany ( Berlin ), USSR ( Moscow ), Japan ( Osaka ) , India ( Delhi & Goa ) etc. Obviously such activity involved many persons and experimental work on different subjects as well as inter laboratory correlation evaluation work. Few other persons were also active in ISO activity like Mr. Lalit Mohan Jamnadas, Mr. M. M.Patel , Dr.B. Banerjee , RRI Kottayam representative e.g. Dr .E. V. Thomas, Dr. Kumaron , later Dr. R. Mukhopadhayay among others.
Research and Academic Activities
I continued my research activity in rubber and related field on return from Germany at Bayer India Ltd., both at our laboratory as well as with other institutes. Initially the work with out side institute started with one Researcher at IRMRA under joint guidance of Professor Biswas of Dept. of Chemistry , Bombay University . Mr. Bishwanath Banerjee carried out his work at IRMRA and Bombay University under my guidance for which he was awarded PhD Degree of Bombay University. Naturally there were heart burning and jealousy among people at IRMRA and certain very unhappy incidences happened during those days exposing the ugly faces of certain people. I would not like to remember those incidences and disturb my mental peace. Out of this research work a number of Papers were published in international journal.
In the meantime, Dr. S.K. De, my junior co-researcher from Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, Calcutta had taken up the responsibility of Rubber Technology Centre at Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. Earlier Dr. S. Banerjee was in charge of the section and was active in the field of rubber chemistry & technology for longer time, till his retirement. Dr S. Banerjee made notable contribution in the subject and produced a number of students who made their name in later years like Dr. Baranwal , Dr S. K. Bhatnagar , Dr S. P. Manik etc. among others. On the retirement of Prof. Sahadeb Banerjee , while looking for his replacement , Prof D. Sen , the then Dean of Students contacted me about Dr. S. K. De as I was known to him and had been active in rubber field and made some impression on the subject. Obviously I supported the case. Dr. De was from Physical Chemistry stream and got inducted in to rubber chemistry & technology. He sent his first student Mr. Robin Mukhopadhyay to me at Bombay ( Bayer India Laboratory ) to start the research work on rubber chemistry & technology under joint guidance of both.
Mr. Robin Mukhopadhyay stayed with us at Bombay and worked at TS Lab of Bayer India for few months before returning to IIT, Kharagpur to continue his research work. This started my direct association with IIT, Kharagpur ( Prof.S.K. De & Prof. Anil K. Bhowmick ) and Mr. Robin Mukhopadhyay at different situation and activity – his PhD Degree, working in Bayer India Ltd. on completion of his PhD, trained at Bayer AG, Germany, then joining JK Tyre, at different stages of Indian Rubber Institute activity ( it is an open secret that I was instrumental in becoming his all India Chairman of IRI ), national and international conferences, ISO meetings etc. It is well known that I was his mentor, whether it is recognized or not. Unfortunately lately, after about three decades, this relationship led to logical impasse (when one reaches high position he tries to shrug-off all those associated on his path of progress). He is not the only person to behave this way. Other great example is IRI Delhi branch which was built up by me & Mr. D. Seth from insignificance to such great height during my Chairmanship, both at branch level and national level. But the present incumbents choose to ignore the Senior who brought IRI to this level, enjoying the facilities created by them without doing any worthwhile activity & take IRI further in the path of progress.
Dr. Mukhopadhyay never thought me fit to be considered for the HASETRI Board for directing R & D activities though he found people from other areas who were inducted into the Board. He never invited me for HASETRI / IRI courses during these years of about two decades though he found much lesser qualified and junior persons more suitable for the purpose. For other different activities of HASETRI he always relied on Dr. S.K. De and Dr. Anil K. Bhowmick , who are definitely capable people but why he could not think of me any time is a mystery. I visited HASETRI of my own many times, always paid by self and brought number of testing & development work to HASETRI over these years. Whenever, specific work needed he would refer to me like NABL accreditation (DSIR), University faculty selection , IRI matter, to solve his problems. But, inspite of this I went on supporting him without questioning as I thought he was a capable and sincere person. Alas , God only knows the truth.
None of my ex-assistants or colleagues, who benefited immensely from me over many years, extended any help to my son when he joined me and started business activity in the related field. Only exception was Mr. D.J. Bharucha.
Joint research activity with IIT, Kharagpur and IIT, Delhi continued for very long time during my active days. After Dr. S.K. De, students from Dr. Anil K. Bhowmick worked with me at different stages. Similarly at IIT, Delhi research work on different schemes were carried out with Dr. A.K. Mukherjee , Dr.A.K.Gupta & Dr. S.N.Maiti etc at Textile Technology Department and CPSE of IIT, Delhi. One of the major field of work with Dr. Mukherjee was the Nylon Tyre Cord performance analysis. Other subjects of research activities were blends of high performance elastomers , nano technology & usage of nano filler in elastomers etc. Similarly, with Dr. Bhowmick was the subject of Adhesion between rubber to rubber and rubber to other substrate. This work led to the development of new method for determination of adhesion between green rubber compounds. All these activities resulted in publication of large number of Papers in international journals. Also these led to M.Tech and Ph.D degrees for different research students.
Research activity during Bayer India days was highly productive. The work was primarily on the applied science / application technology of different chemicals in rubber compound and rubber product manufacture. These studies included the vulcanization characteristics of Sulfenamide accelerators, protection mechanism of Antioxidants and Antiozonants against ageing, Peptization and Peptizer usage in mastication of rubber etc. During this period series of Papers were presented at different conferences all over the country and the research work led to publication of a large number of Papers in national and international journals, including Bayer AG literature. Bayer India had the distinction to be the only Bayer Group company out side Germany whose research work was referred in Bayer AG literature ( Handbook ).
These application research carried out by us was instrumental in establishing Bayer India products in Indian rubber industry capturing major market share in short period.
During these three decades my association with academic institute and their activity was very regular. Perhaps I was the most visible inter-phase between academic institute and industry and endeavored to get these two on a common platform frequently those days and even much later. My academic activity included regular lecture delivering and taking class for M.Tech / B.Tech level courses of IIT’s ( Delhi & Kharagpur ) , Delhi College of Engineering , REC / NIT Jalandhar, IRMRA , RRI etc. as visiting Faculty, Paper setter / examiner of Universities etc, conducting joint Seminars , research publication , organizing courses for the industry etc. Many academic activities are still continuing.
Rubber Journals
Rubber News, a Journal on rubber published by Mr. Kulkarni from Bombay was quite popular in 1970s. It was regular and punctual in publishing. Rubber News was known for its controversial editorials those days. I published a number of Papers in this journal during my Bayer India days.
Rubber India and Rubber News were published from Bombay and Rubber Chem Review from Calcutta. Rubber India is the mouth piece of All India Rubber Industries Association and obviously carries a lot of news and photographs of the concerned persons. There was and is a journal published by RRI, Rubber Board, Kottayam regularly which is primarily devoted to natural rubber and plantation. Later years new journals namely Rubber Asia and IRJ started publishing regularly from Kochi & Mumbai respectively. Rubber Asia is devoted to natural rubber & latex and plantation / planters whereas IRJ focuses to national and international companies & personalities of these companies.
Unfortunately, none of the rubber journals of India could achieve the desired standard. Journals also did not strive for improving their standard over the years. Rather, the journals are more interested in their own publicity and filling the pages with old information or reprinting already published articles in other journals. Technical content of these journals were and are very poor. I tried hard and often published research Papers in these journals to provide some technical colour to the journals. Effective editing of the journals was always lacking.
IRI / PRI / IRI
On return from Germany I became member of Institution of Rubber Industry ( as IRI was known at that time ) of Bombay branch and started to take part in the activities of the institute. Head Quarter of IRI was in Calcutta , with four branches in Calcutta, Bombay, Delhi & Madras. After a short while, with the new committee of the Bombay branch, I became secretary which I continued for many years. Chairman of the Bombay branch at that time was Mr. Vijay Makkar of Oriental Rubber who was a fine gentleman and supportive to me.
IRI has served the rubber industry and technology of the country for more than five decades. Great thing about the institute is that it was run on voluntary basis by the people from the industry and academic institutes which created a large number of qualified rubber technologists who are now occupying very senior positions in the industry. Unfortunately, very few of them effectively contributed back to the cause of IRI and recognised the role of IRI in the industry and even in their personal life & carrier. Membership fee amount of IRI was meager and voluntary contribution from industry met the expenses for the activity of the Institute. This was possible due to ceaseless efforts of certain committed persons involved in IRI activity.
The major function of the institute was educational activity i.e. to conduct classes for the students who wanted to appear for the Licentiate Degree of the IRI, UK. Those days IRI head office was in London, UK and India chapter was the largest outside UK. In fact, after some time, India chapter membership became higher than the head quarter and number of students appearing from India for the Licentiate / Diploma courses were the highest in the world. Frequently Indian students used to stand first in the examination in the world. The question papers were set in UK and were sent directly to the examination center through British Council and the answer books were sent back to UK for evaluation. We used to conduct IRI classes for the course at Synthetics & Chemicals Laboratory at Worli, Bombay which had good facility to hold such classes on regular basis. Major contributor for the course at that time in Bombay were few dedicated people like Mr. R.R. Pandit, Mr. N.M. Rege etc beside myself. Contribution of Mr. W.G. Desai for the cause of IRI is well known. Different lecturers from Bayer, Monsanto , Synthetics & Chemicals , Cosmos etc. were taking the class by turn.
Later, in 1980, I shifted to north and became attached to Delhi branch which was in poor state at that time. I joined Modi Rubber Ltd. and got involved into the activity of Delhi branch. Subsequently, the Delhi branch committee was changed in early 1980’s and switched over to new Chairman ( Dr. N.V.C. Rao followed by Mr. M.R. Verma , Mr. D.C. Verma and then myself ) with Mr. D. Seth of Polyolefins India Ltd. (PIL) as Secretary who was stationed in Delhi. This new team did an excellent job to revive Delhi branch which was in bad shape at that time. The effort of new Committee increased the membership of the institute, carried out many activities, organising Seminar and National Conference, conducting Diploma courses which was attended by large number of students, participating in the activities of Council and above all for the first time in the history of IRI purchased own premises for the branch and thus had a permanent office and address of the institute. With this centralized place of the branch we started creating a library for the benefit of the members and students and published IRI Journal for few years. IRI Delhi branch organized first ever International Conference, Rubbercon 93, at Ashoka Hotel , Delhi in February 1993 as IRCO recognised conference. A large number of international luminaries from all over the world participated in this conference. 1980’s and 1990’s were the highly productive activity decades for the Delhi branch which was recognized by all in the rubber fraternity. Unfortunately, later years Delhi branch slipped back to the old situation without any activity worth mentioning. When IRI did not have enough money, office bearers & members were committed and active. And such situation did not encourage groupism and internal politics. With affluence, certain people saw chance to park themselves in the Committee and tried to capture the institute forming group of vested interest people and enjoy the facility created by hard work of some dedicated people. Some of the retired people found heaven in IRI office and Committee whereas some people found IRI could be good vehicle to meet their business interest.
In the meantime Institution of Rubber Industry merged with Plastic Institute in UK forming a single entity Plastic & Rubber Institute , UK , which was also ultimately dissolved in 1990’s and merged in the Institute of Materials , UK. By then India became independent of UK institute and formed own institute namely Indian Rubber Institute to which total India chapter belonged.
In 2001, I became the Chairman of the Indian Rubber Institute and during my tenure of two years IRI reached the new heights not seen earlier. Besides establishing IRI’s own office , Delhi branch office for the first time in the history of IRI , the Council got a permanent address when we purchased own premises in Kolkata. Soon after Dr. D. Banerjee Gold Medal Award for the best IRI student was introduced. What IRI could not organize in earlier 50 years was achieved by us in last few years. Own offices and properties of Council and branches , increase in membership and activity , Gold medal award , IRCO, UK membership, holding of series of regional, national and international conferences were the highlights of this period. It was golden period of IRI.
Obviously, this success and activity of IRI developed jealousy and enmity among few self seekers who wanted only the chairs and ganged up against the performers. Often ugly faces of certain IRI members came out in the open during Council meetings , Conferences , over e. mail and letters.
After a long period of Chairmanship Dr. D. Banerjee became Emeritus Chairman of IRI and Mr. D. Bose took over the Chairmanship of the institute with Dr. Soumen Chakraborty as Hon. Secretary for few years. This was a period of trouble and problem for IRI. There were hardly any activity of the Council, IT return was not filed for years , no secretarial activity was visible. All these landed IRI into serious problem which had to be sorted out in subsequent years with great effort & cost.
Finally Mr. D. Bose resigned from IRI Chairmanship and at Chennai Council meeting it was decided unanimously that IRI Chairmanship would be for 2 years period and the Chairmanship will go to branches by rotation – West , North , South & East , in that order. The elected Vice-Chairman will become the next Chairman of the Council. My support was very much needed for anybody to become Chairman of the Council and considering this I was approached by Mr. C.T. Patel of Bombay branch with a request to extend my support to Mr. M.M. Patel for Chairmanship of the Council. He pleaded that Mr. Patel was a senior man and request to support him for the Chairmanship. An understanding was reached to this effect and I supported him to become the Chairman. Simultaneously, Mr. Patel announced in the meeting my name as Vice-Chairman so that I become next Chairman of the Council after completion of the term of Mr. M.M. Patel.
On completion of two years when my term for Chairmanship came, Mr. Patel was following delaying tactic. After waiting for some time, I reminded Mr. C.T. Patel about his talk with me and honouring the understanding at that time at Chennai. He promised me to talk to Mr. Patel. Finally, the Chairmanship was handed over, again in Chennai Council meet, where Mr. Patel did not attend.
With the downhill of the industry , especially the rubber industry of West Bengal, Bombay rubber industry progressed very well and other activity, including IRI activity came to prominence. There was a strong Bombay lobby or group who controlled all aspect of rubber activity, AIRIA, Rubber Industry & IRI etc. and the group was controlled by Gujaratis. They ensured that outsiders are not given prominence and controlled all executive positions though none of them were high in the merit of scientific / technological capabilities nor they had high academic qualifications. People with high capability and qualifications like Mr. R.R. Pandit, Dr. A.S. Ghag, Mr. N.M. Rege, myself etc. were always kept at a distance. However, myself and Dr. Ghag were fighter and could not be suppressed by any group.
Subsequently, with the formation of new branches namely Rajasthan , Mysore and Kerala , which were up-graded from sub-branch status to independent branch , it was decided that all these seven branches will hold Chairmanship of Council by rotation. Thus after my eventful Chairmanship , Mr. P. K. Mohamed of Kerala Branch and then Dr. R. Mukhopadhyay of Rajasthan branch became Chairman of IRI.
IRI Council lacked personalities who were ready to stand up against groupism of vested interest people and speak openly for the cause of IRI. Most of them tried to play goody – goody looking only for self interest .Yesterdays sworn enemy, trading charges against each other in writing and in meetings , became friends later for self interest. Like politicians of the country their sole aim was to cling to the post. IRI platform was used for personal and business interest. By this time IRI had established offices in own premises and had enough fund which attracted some to park themselves at IRI office. Other than the arrangement which was entered with IIT Kharagpur quite some years back for Diploma course examination and once a while national conference , which were established by earlier chairman , no worthwhile activities are carried out by IRI. Some branch activities are at stand still. No effective contribution is made to IRCO / ISO / BIS. IRI journal could not be revived by subsequent Chairman / Committee. Contact with academic institution ( other than IIT Kharagpur for examination purpose ) have waned. Fund raised from IRI Conference by a branch is given to particular institute with the aim of placing oneself in such institute in vantage situation instead of collecting all funds together to establish own building with library , laboratory for Quality control etc. facility as done by many institute in the country. For such things vision and leadership needed.
