DRDO clinches deal with US firm for explosives detection technology

New Delhi: India's premier defence establishment, the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), has clinched a deal for technology transfer of an explosive detection kit (EDK) with an American firm. The kit, developed by the Pune-based High Energy Material Research Lab (HEMRL), a DRDO lab, is already in use with the Indian armed forces, paramilitary and state police forces.

US firm, Crowe and Co, signed a memorandum of understanding with the DRDO for obtaining licence for the technology of EDK. The deal is important for DRDO as it is one of those a rare occasion when a DRDO product has been accepted in the global marketplace.

Crowe & Co have said they intend to market the technology for use by US homeland security and in the international markets.

Commercialisation of technology for the DRDO has begun a long time back and outsourcing of technology is not a first for DRDO as in the past too it struck a similar kind of licensing agreement for an explosive detection kit with an Indian company, Vantage Integrated Security Solutions.

The agreement was signed by HEMRL director, Subhananda Rao and Crowe and Co president, Faye Crowe, in the presence of Dr Prahlada, chief controller (R&D, aeronautics and services interaction) DRDO.

HEMRL has developed the kit for quick detection and identification of explosives based on any combination of nitroesters, nitramines, trinitrotoluene (TNT), dynamite or black powder. It contains reagents capable of detecting explosives, even in extremely small, trace quantities, with the test requiring only three to five milligrams of the suspected sample and just three or four drops of reagents.