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Dr C. H. Krishnamurthy Rao, Chairman and Managing Director, Chemfab Alkalies Ltd, passed away today. He was 70.
A first generation entrepreneur, Dr Rao is best known for giving India its first reverse osmosis-based desalination technology.
Back in the early 1980s, Dr Rao put up the country's first RO plant on the marina beach in Chennai, spending Rs 70 lakh out of his pocket just to demonstrate the technology. The plant, whose location became a landmark, caught the attention of the Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, who made RO a part of his ‘Technology Mission for Water.'
Though Dr Rao emigrated to Singapore “unable to navigate my way through the bureaucratic labyrinth,” he kept his date with water in India through the establishment of bottled water under the brand name ‘Team.' ‘Team,' which later went on into not-so-successful business of high-in-alkali ‘health-waters,' was one of the earlier entrants into the bottled water business in India.
The Rs 80-crore caustic soda manufacturer, Chemfab Alkalies Ltd, which Dr Rao founded in 1983, was the first Indian company to switch to ‘membrane cell' technology, from the power-guzzling, toxic, ‘mercury technology', back in the early 1990s. This became a precedent-setting move, and later the Government mandated a similar technology switch of all caustic soda plants in India.
In Singapore, with a S$ 2 million from the National Science and Technology Board, Singapore, the company, Dr Rao Holdings Pte Ltd, invented the ‘hollow fibre ultra filtration' membranes. These membranes are used in recycling of water and in industries to achieve zero discharge. They are used in the pre-treatment of sea water for RO plants. Many industrial boilers use the membranes for removal of colloidal silica.
A Ph.D from BITS, Pilani (in Technology Management in industries), Dr Rao got his well-earned recognition in 2010, when the Indian Desalination Association (InDA) honoured him with a ‘life-time achievement' award.
Dr Rao's dream was to see the creation of a string of RO plants along the coast of Tamil Nadu, which he said would solve the drinking problem in the State and also free fresh water for industries. A couple of years back, he gave a proposal to the Tamil Nadu Government volunteering to put up desalination plants at his own cost, against the promise of offtake at a fixed price. The proposal disappeared into the bureaucratic black hole and this remained his biggest disappointment in life.
Dr Rao is survived by his wife, Padma and son Suresh.
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