From The Hindu Archives, February 3, 1976: Petroleum products from forest waste

Madras, Feb. 2: Space scientists at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), Trivandrum, in their quest for rocket fuel substitute have stumbled on a process for converting forest waste into petroleum crude and a variety of other products that could enrich the country by Rs. 730 crores annually, besides providing employment for a million people. This discovery of tremendous significance had been implemented beyond the pilot plant stage leading to a detailed project report, Prof. Satish Dhawan, Chairman, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), said while delivering the Dr. A.L. Mudallar Lecture at the Indian Institute of Technology here. Prof. Dhawan was speaking on scientific application of rocket propellant technology to areas other than space. Later he told pressmen that the Space Commission had, after detailed study, given the go ahead for the project. This project had far-reaching social and industrial implications, particularly for solving unemployment, effecting import substitution and cutting down crude imports. In short, seven million tonnes of non-edible oil seeds like sal, madhua, neem and half a dozen more could be through chemical processes, converted into two million tonnes of crude, sizable quantity of cooking gas, and most important industrial chemicals which were now being imported at a cost of over Rs. 75 crores in terms of foreign exchange and huge quantities of oil cakes that could be used as ‘non-toxic fertilizers’.