The Hindu Business Line : DuPont plans R&D centre in India

It would also explore collaborations with large universities and scientific institutions in India in those areas of R&D work that are a natural fit for the country.

"We now have no R&D presence in India. Biotechnology is an area where we see lot of opportunity for R&D work in India. We in DuPont are laying out a vision for globalising our R&D activities," Ms Uma Chowdhry, Vice-President-Global, DuPont Central R&D, told Business Line here.

In India, DuPont also plans to recruit people to do patent searching and patent drafting for its inventions and discoveries.

"I hope some day we will have significant R&D presence in India. We could even build a centre of competence here," she said.

The other areas of R&D to be explored include discovery work, new materials and screening and even ascertaining the fundamental science behind the chemical processes carried out by the company. Ms Chowdhry is here on a fortnight's visit to look at avenues of R&D collaboration and presence.

Asked as to how she compared DuPont's R&D activities in China with that being planned for India, Ms Chowdhry said that DuPont has no R&D presence even in China. "What we are building in China currently is a laboratory — centre for training our customers in the use of materials that we produce. It's an application laboratory and not a R&D centre," Ms Chowdhry explained.

Change of guard at DuPont India

IT is transition time at the Rs 1,000-crore DuPont India, a subsidiary of US-based E.I. du Pont de Nemours and company. The outgoing President of DuPont India, Mr Pankaj H. Shah, says that "using India's intellectual pool for carrying out research and development (R&D) work and sourcing such knowledge intensive services from here" remains an unfinished agenda for the Indian operations that have been steered by him.

Mr Shah, who is moving over to DuPont in North America, has been with Dupont India for over six years. Mr Henrique H. Ubrig, who was till recently President, DuPont-South America, will takeover as the President of DuPont India/Pakistan in the next few months.

"I am in a transition mode. The agenda `blueprint for winning' that we had set for ourselves two years ago is on track. In fact, we have exceeded our expectations. DuPont looks at India as a strong opportunities market. For DuPont, India is a specific sub-region now and is not part of the South-Asia region anymore," Mr Shah told Business Line.

In the medium term, Mr Shah does see a scenario of DuPont having R&D presence in India. "I cannot say that India would become a R&D hub for DuPont. But there will be some satellite type R&D processes carried out from here," Mr Shah said, when asked whether the company intends a R&D hub out of India for its global operations.

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