Differently abled scientist secures his ‘due honours’ with CLRI

Chennai

Gnana Bharathi, an IIT Roorkee graduate who had been pushing for the transfer since 2007 with little success, now rues about the lost time. “I wanted to establish myself in environmental technology. Had I been transferred earlier, my productivity would have been better. In spite being posted in the library, where one cannot do physical experiments, I have experimented with my new ideas in my residence and have filed two patent applications through CLRI – on ‘Clean Self-draining Water Conservative System for Urinals’ and ‘High Air Circulating Rotating Biological Contactor’. I also wanted to file three patents on sea wave energy conversion technology. My research abstracts on this technology have been accepted by two international conferences. But my chances of attending the above conferences are uncertain,” he revealed, adding that his PhD too was delayed by six months.

Deepak T N M, disability activist, said that this raises the larger issue of a disabled person’s role in the society.

“The transfer should have been effected after an email and not after a protest. More importantly, if such an incident is happening to a scientist in an urban centre, what about the countless illiterate disabled persons in rural areas?” he queried.

Dr B Chandrasekaran, director, CLRI, said, “We have done all that we could in this instance and this should have been handled internally. These are not overnight decisions. At the end of the day, he is our employee and we will only be happy if he performs better for the organisation.”