Vice Chancellor PU presided over FMC SAIF meeting

Vice Chancellor PU presided over FMC SAIF meeting

NT24News

Chandigarh

A meeting of   the Facility Management Committee   (FMC) of Sophisticated Analytical Instrumentation Facility (SAIF) was held taday i.e. September 7, 2018 in VCCR, PU. Prof. Raj Kumar, Vice Chancellor, chaired the FMC meeting and welcomed the members of the FMC, Dr. Pratishtha Pandey, Scientist E, DST, Prof. Dilip Dhavale, from Pune University, Prof. R.K. Mahajan, Vice-Chancellor, DAV University, Jalandhar, Dr. Raman Prakesh, Principal Scientist, CSIR-IMTECH,Chandigarh, Dr. Sanjay Trehan, President, Panacea Biotech Ltd.,Mohali. Prof. S K Mehta, Director SAIF presented the progress report of the centre. Members appreciated the progress of Centre, Prof. Dhavale appraised the committee that SAIF Chandigarh is on the top list of SAIFs among all universities.  Prof. Raj Kumar articulated that SAIF is very ambitious program and area to which a particular centre is serving is very important. He suggested that the instruments which are more than 10 years old should be replaced by DST. After long discussion, it was decided that proposal for X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Vibrating Sample Magnetometer (VSM) and small instruments viz Particle size and Zeta Potential Measuring System, Ion Chromatograph (IC), Electrochemical work station, BET analyzer, Fluorescence Spectrometer, Polarimeter, UV-VIS spectrometer DRS, Circular Dichroism Spectrometer,  Spectroscopic Ellipsometer, Water Purification System be allowed by FMC and may be presented in steering committee. Dr. Pratishtha Pandey, suggested that high quality analysis may also be included in the report. Dr. Raman Prakesh further suggested to include interviews of scientists who have used the SAIF facility. Prof. Raj Kumar advised that centre should have collaborations with international as well as Indian laboratories.  He asked Prof Mehta to work out for at least four foreign and six Indian lab collaboration. He further advised to increase the number of samples to double. Along with this, the citations and patents generated out of usage of facility should also be included. He suggested to hold special workshops for hands on training for J& K, Himachal Pradesh with atleast 20 students and teachers from each state and five students and one faculty from each one of North east states. Vice Chancellor thanked all the members with the remark  that  development in science should reach common people and should not be confined to labs only.