Prabha Kant Sinha contributes $2m to IIT, Kharagpur for a Bio-fuel Research Centre. Discusses with other alumni the challenges and opportunities of Bio-fuel in India.

Dr. Prabha Kant Sinha, an alumnus, has contributed $2m toward setting up the “P. K. Sinha - Bio-fuel Research Centre” at IIT Kharagpur. The centre is already up and running and is engaged in researching the opportunities and challenges of Bio-fuel, such as, Bio-ethanol, Bio-diesel, Bio-hydrogen, Microbial Bio-fuels in the Indian context. Prabha earned his Ph.D. at MIT and B-Tech. at IIT KGP (class of 1970). He has been an Associate Professor of Marketing at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University until 1987.  He continues to teach sales and marketing leaders in executive education programs at Kellogg and at the Indian School of Business.  He has co- authored several books that include ‘Building a Winning Sales Force’. Prabha co-founded the sales and marketing  consulting firm ZS Associates in 1983 and is currently it’s Co-Chairman. Headquartered in Evanston, IL, the firm employs 1500 persons spread across offices located in many countries.  For his role in steering the success of ZS, Prabha was inducted into the ‘Chicago Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame’ in 2005.

Prabha is currently visiting India primarily to attend the convocation at IIT KGP to be held on 16 July 2010 where he will be receiving the coveted ‘Distinguished Alumnus Award’. Taking advantage of his visit, the Kolkata Chapter of IIT KGP Alumni Association invited him to share his experience with other alumni at the IIT KGP Salt Lake Centre in Kolkata. Some 40 alumni attended the lecture meeting. [Pic: Biswajit Choudhuri, President of IIT KGP Alumni Association, Kolkata introducing Prabha to the audience].

Prabha informed the audience that at this time Brazil produces Bio-ethanol from sugarcane and the US from corn. Brazil has vast amounts of land and water reserves and is able to substitute as much as 45% of transportation fuel by Bio-fuel. In the US, on the other hand, while land is not an issue, there are pockets that have water supply concerns and for this and various other reasons the percentage is much lower, it’s around 5% of the total transportation fuel, which though low compared to Brazil is nevertheless not insubstantial. In India, however, both land and water reserves per capita are low.

Therefore, the Research Centre at IIT KGP is going to investigate and find ways and means of overcoming this challenge and other challenges and increase bio-fuel production because as Prabha reminded the audience the future is in Bio-fuel. [Pic: A section of the audience – the gentleman at front left corner in maroon tee-shirt is from the class of 1955, which was the very first batch of the Institute].

Prabha brought in a high level of energy into his presentation and from the beginning he involved the audience, actively bouncing each idea off the audience. The audience too responded with knowledge, experience and enthusiasm. What was intended as a lecture session ended up as an interactive session. It appeared that the future of Bio-fuel in India is still somewhat uncertain due mainly to short supply of land and water. The impact of Bio-fuel production on food crop and on cattle feed is also of serious concern. Hopefully, the P. K. Sinha Bio-fuel Research Centre will find solutions to these issues.

The session ended with Alakananda Rao, the Honorary Secretary of the Kolkata Alumni Chapter presenting a memento to Prabha and everybody congratulating Prabha on being chosen as a Distinguished Alumnus, which he so richly deserves. [Pic: A section of the alumni: in the front row: Prabha Kant Sinha, Biswajit Choudhuri and Hirak Sen ].