(financialexpress.com) - The Kerala government is in talks with Russia on technology tie up for its titanium sponge and rare metals. The offer from Russia came on the eve of its profit-maker PSU Kerala Minerals and Metals Ltd (KMML) gearing up for a Rs 90-crore titanium sponge project with the financial backing of ISRO.
Chief minister VS Achuthanandan told Vladislav V Antonyuk, the consul-general Russian Federation in South India, that the state was prepared for more detailed discussions with specific business groups. Antonyuk had called on the chief minister after inaugurating a seminar on New horizons- Indo Russian co-operation in metallurgy.
Only Russia, China, Japan, the US, Kazakhstan and Ukraine have the technology to manufacture titanium sponge. Titanium sponge is the semi-processed form of titanium, a metal with wide aerospace, defence and atomic energy, applications. The country is facing a shortage of titanium for its defence applications. Kerala PSU in Chavara (in Kollam district) has access to one of the richest deposits of titanium ore in the sand spread from Kayamkulam to Neendakara, reports Trend.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was to inaugurate KMML's titanium sponge project expansion project with technology from the Defence Metallurgical Research Labortory (DMRL) this week. It was only because of the logistics bottleneck in manoeuvring a VVIP helipad near the Chavara factory that the inauguration ceremony was shelved.
Russia, however, is ready to go beyond titanium sponge. Besides metallurgy, traders in Russia were keen to explore mutually beneficial business opportunities in natural gas, IT and tourism sectors, Antonyuk said. Russia used to have healthy cultural links with the Kerala community and it would be more useful if the ties extend to trade and technology also, he said.