The purpose of instrumentation is to improve productivity, quality, efficiency, safety, and waste minimisation. They help in improving the standard of living while reducing cost and wastage and at the same time adhering to environmental practices. This was stated by Ramesh Datla, President, Instrumentation, Systems and Automation Society (ISA), AP Chapter. He is also the Managing Director of Elico Ltd, the Instrumentation Software Solutions major, and Vice-Chairman, CII-AP.

Talking to Chronicle Pharmabiz, Datla said this industry consisted of two sections - Process Instrumentation and Laboratory Instrumentation. The industry was dominated by US and European companies who controlled 70% of the world market, followed by Japan by about 10-15%. The top 25 companies had cornered 50%of the world market while the largest 50 accounted for 70%. The rest came from a large number of companies, he said.

In Process Instrumentation, the key players were Emerson Process Automation, Fisher Rosemond (both US), ABB, Siemens (both Europe) and Yokogawa (Japan). The scenario in India was no different. The Indian market was also dominated by the same players, he said.

The biggest markets in India as far as process instrumentation was concerned were Petroleum & Petro-Chemicals, Power Generation, Pharmaceuticals, etc. From the government side it included water supply and waste treatment. The local manufactures were mostly value-added suppliers who include Bell Controls etc. ECIL and IL Kota were in the government sector helping the power projects.

In Laboratory Instrumentation also, the dominant players were the American and European companies like Thermo Instruments, Agilent Technologies, Perkin Elmer, Amersham Biotech and Shimadzu. The Indian companies included Elico, Lab India, Chemito and the public sector ECIL. In lab instrumentation, the growth sectors were life sciences, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, food & beverages, environment, material sciences, academia and government.

In India not much R & D had been carried out in the instrumentation industry. Basically, the country had been dependent on imports. Though a lot of R&D was done in the early 60's in the government labs, like CSIR and DAE labs, due to sanctions imposed during the Chinese war, very few of the technologies were commercialised. Later, dependence on foreign products grew because on non-availability of indigenous technology. As there was no interaction between the research organizations and the industry, the local industry looked for technologies outside India. There were very few companies doing R&D in instrumentation in the country, Datla said.

This was one of the most important sectors and, therefore, the industry and the government research institutions should sit together to develop technologies that would, in turn, enhance the competitiveness of the domestic industry. The market size was around Rs 3,500 crore and it was growing at the rate of 8-10%. In the last 10 years, the industry had grown to a great extent because of international competition.

As per the WTO-IT Agreement signed in 1997 by the Indian Government, a majority of the instrumentation products, particularly lab instrumentation, fell under the IT definition. From 2005, this would become a zero duty industry. As there would not be any customs duty, it would have a major impact on the domestic manufacturers. The post WTO regime would open up India for all type of products and the local industry would face stiffer competition, particularly on technology and cost, he said.

" With trade barriers coming down, we see a trend where getting technology from developed countries is becoming tougher. Developed countries are also imposing technical trade barriers, including IPR," Datla said.

The objective of the conference INTERKAMA which ISA was sponsoring, was to present to the delegates an overview of the technological advancements that would guide them in designing new Control Systems or upgrading the existing ones so that they could take maximum benefits out of the advances in technology.