Overall performance of the company during the year 1999-2000 showed marked improvement. The income and net profit of the company rose to Rs. 146.38 crore and Rs. 11.51 crore respectively from the previous year’s income of Rs. 134.18 crore and net profit of Rs. 3.7 crore.

To win the ore from deeper levels, the work of Ill-Stage Shaft Sinking was taken up. The work of shaft sinking was completed and orders for the winders were placed.

The opening of new mine at Narwapahar and expansion of existing mill at Jaduguda were completed.

During the period 1999-2000, the total sales turnover of IREL reached a figure of Rs. 215 crore - an improvement of 21% over the previous year. Foreign exchange earned through export sales reached an all time high figure of Rs. 78.25 crore. Profit before tax was Rs. 23.47 crore – 150% increase over that of last year.

The ilmenite production reached an all time high figure of Rs. 3.77 lakh tons.

The Manavalakurichi Unit became the third unit of IREL to obtain ISO-9002 certification.

A Joint Venture Agreement was signed by IREL with AUSTPAC Resource NL to set up a demonstration plant at OSCOM for the production of 10,000 tpa of high grade Synthetic Rutile, using a new technology.

During the financial year 1999-2000, production of Rs.419 crore and sale of Rs.405 crore against the target of Rs.440 crore were achieved.

Against the annual target of Rs.485 crore each for production and sales, production of Rs.302 crore and sale of Rs.324 crore were achieved upto January 2001.

Orders worth Rs.290 crore were booked during the period April 2000-January 2001.

New products with applications in strategic areas were introduced.

Special Products Division of ECIL obtained ISO-9002 certification.

During the period till January 2001, exports made were : Singapore (105 lakh) and Russia (44 lakh). An export order worth Rs.87 lakh was received from Russia.

DAE, through the Board of Research in Nuclear Sciences (BRNS) and the National Board for Higher Mathematics (NBHM) promotes research and other activities in nuclear sciences and mathematics respectively, at universities and other academics institutions. NBHM also participates in the International Mathematical Olympiad.

Financial assistance was given by BRNS to 54 new projects and 134 ongoing projects were renewed. The Board also sponsored 174 conferences/ symposia.

An MoU was signed by BRNS with Pune University which envisages setting up a 7 MeV LINAC facility for the studies in natural sciences.  Another MoU was signed with the Rajasthan Agricultural University, Bikaner, for establishing a Radiotracer Laboratory and Multi-locational Testing and Seed Production of Crop Varieties developed at Trombay.

Under the BRNS Visiting Scientist Scheme, two scientists visited BARC and seven post-doctoral fellows joined various R&D units of DAE under the Dr. K.S. Krishnan Research Associateship Scheme.

NBHM provided financial support of Rs.3.5 crore to about 80 universities/ institutions. Ten new fellowships were provided at the doctoral/post-doctoral levels. The Board also initiated schemes for making mathematical literature accessible through electronic communication.

Aided Institutions

For the financial year 2000-01, the grant-in-aid provided by DAE to seven national institutions were : Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (Rs.86 crore), Tata Memorial Centre(Rs.62.7 crore), Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics (Rs.29.30 crore), Institute of Physics (Rs.8.54 crore), Institute of Mathematical Sciences (Rs.8.25 crore), Harish-Chandra Research Institute (Rs.8 crore), and Institute for Plasma Research (Rs.56.5 crore).

The development programmes undertaken by TIFR for the Giant Metre-wave Radio Telescope (GMRT) progressed. A 2.5-3 metre Optical Telescope in Devasthal, Nainital, as collaborative project between TIFR and UP State Observatory, was under construction.

High power lasers were used at TIFR to study the highly excited imploded atomic matter. Laser techniques were used to fabricate high quality superconductivity thin films.

A high current isotope separator followed by a 200 kV ion implanter, was set up at Kolkata as a national facility, by the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics (SINP).

The designing and building work on the Steady-State Tokamak for thermonuclear fusion research at the Institute for Plasma Research continued.

The Tata Memorial Centre (TMC), an aided institution of DAE, registered over 21,000 new cases involving diagnosis and treatment of cancers. For providing better service to the patients, TMC introduced modern facilities which included a new minor operation theatre, cobalt therapy machine, and tele-pathology facility.

The work on the Advanced Centre for Training, Research & Education in Cancer (ACTREC) project, being set up by TMC at Owe village, Navi Mumbai, progressed.

DAE signed a tripartite agreement with the Northeast Council and the Government of Assam for revitalisation of Dr. B. Barooah Cancer Institute, Guwahati. With the objective of improving cancer control measures in the country, the Department provided financial assistance to cancer hospitals.

DAE also approved a collaborative project with M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation.

BARC manufactured Detector Frames (Station I&II) for the Los Alamos National Laboratory (USA) and ENSTAR Assembly for COSY Labs, Germany.

A mathematical code RADTRAN meant for VVER-440 was developed to determine the distribution of radioactivity around the coolant circuit. It is a collaborative work with Veiki Institute Budapest, Hungary.

DAE has an international collaboration with CERN at Geneva, Switzerland, in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) Project. Under the collaboration, production of super-MCS (superconducting sextupole corrector magnet) and MCD (superconducting decapole corrector magnet) was started at CAT and pre-series magnets were supplied to CERN.

At VECC, the Technical Design Report of the Indian team for the development of Photon Multiplicity Detector (PMD) for the ALICE experiment at LHC at CERN, was approved by the LHC Experiments Committee at CERN.

TIFR participated in the large international collaborations at CERN and Fermilab.

During the period of report, a total of 10 technologies were transferred by BARC. Products such as ANUPAM software, Al-Be master alloy, Glass-to-Metal seals and 16-node ANUPAM-P-III system were supplied within the country and certain R&D items were exported to Indonesia and Vietnam.

The Centre for Compositional Characterisation of Materials (CCCM) at Hyderabad offered analytical services to industry and research laboratories and continued with its in-house R&D programme. The Centre also carried out certain analyses for the Semiconductor Complex Ltd., Hyderabad.

India, which is a designated member of the Board of Governors (BoG) of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), continued to offer training facilities, fellowships, scientific visits etc. and made available the services of its scientists for expert assignments.

About 448 scientists/engineers/administrators participated in international symposia, workshops, conferences and meetings.

The Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) led the Indian delegation to the 44th Regular Session of the IAEA General Conference held in Vienna, Austria during September 18 to 22, 2000.

During the period of report, India signed agreements/ MoUs with Thailand, IAEA, Vietnam, Sri Lanka and Russian Federation.

From the Training School of BARC, 132 Trainees of the 43rd Orientation Course for Engineers and Scientists (OCES43) and 16 Trainees of the IX Orientation Course for Engineering Postgraduates (OCEP9), graduated and were absorbed in different units of DAE. Under the Indo-Vietnam Bilateral Collaboration, four scientists/engineers from Vietnam completed the OCES43 course and four joined the OCES44. Four trainees each in the first and second batches selected under the DAE-IIT (Kanpur) M.Tech. Scheme, continued with their M.Tech. in Nuclear Engineering and Technology at IIT, Kanpur.

In recognition of its outstanding performance in the area of training of manpower at all levels, the Heavy Water Board was awarded the Golden Peacock National Training Award 1999 by the Institute of Directors, New Delhi.

The industrial relations in the Department continued to be smooth and cordial.

Under the Employees’ Welfare Programme of DAE health care services were provided to the employees and their families. The Contributory Health Services Scheme has been in operation at 11 places and it is proposed to extend the service to Hyderabad and Mysore. During the year, certain provisions in the Scheme were modified to make it more liberal.

This year seven eminent scientists/academicians from DAE organisation were honoured with the prestigious national civil award "Padmashree". The Chairman, NBHM was nominated as the Fellow of the Royal Society, London.

Dr. P K Bose Memorial Award and Rev Fr. Yedanapalli Memorial Award by the Indian Chemical Society, and A K Bose Memorial Award by the Indian National Science Academy were conferred on BARC scientists.