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From left, Mr Derek M Shah, Dr Montek Singh Ahluwalia and Mr Subramanian Sarma engrossed in a discussion on India’s clean energy roadmap.
With global players veering towards a China+1 policy, a window of opportunity has opened for India to emerge as a hub for production of renewable energy equipment and hence, India should focus on developing in-house technology in this space. This was the overwhelming opinion at an engrossing panel discussion hosted at L&T’s corporate office AMN Tower in Mumbai on 12 August. Titled Energy Transition & Climate Change Developments, the panel discussion was organised by L&T Green (LTG) and noted economist Dr Montek Singh Ahluwalia was the keynote speaker. The session was chaired by Mr Subramanian Sarma (Whole-time Director & Sr EVP – Energy, L&T) and moderated by Mr Derek M Shah (Sr VP and Head – LTG). In the fight against global warming, much will hinge on new technologies created by the developed nations, the panellists opined. Therefore, Indian companies, should closely monitor such developments and synchronise their energy efficiency targets with those. The participants felt that it would be illogical to expect technology transfers for free. The pricing of technology should, therefore, be transparent. At the same time, Indian players need to shed the mindset of prolonged protection (e.g., a 40% customs duty on import of solar modules), or else India will not be able to emerge as an export hub for renewable energy equipment. Dr Ahluwalia’s talk was interesting and thought-provoking. In a free-flowing exchange, he said that the world has reached a stage wherein reducing the emission intensity in respect to GDP growth is not enough. Rather, the world needs to reduce greenhouse gas emission and bring down carbon dioxide emissions to zero. He lauded the Government of India’s target to achieve carbon-neutrality by 2070. However, referring to India’s proclivity in creating rousing slogans, he emphasised that the country should be equally adept at developing expertise in setting targets and policies, as well as implementing programmes to achieve them.
Continuing in the same vein, he added that while 2070 seems like a long way off, in the interim, Indian policymakers need to prioritise their goals and engage in granular planning by setting targets with shorter time horizons. The country’s target to augment its renewable energy capacity by 2030, making up for 50% of the total energy capacity, is one such target with a clear priority, he said. Although coal will continue to be a source of energy in India for at least a few more decades, no new coal-based thermal plant should be allowed to be set up (barring those already under construction). The panellists emphasised that it is essential to determine the amount of renewable energy to be generated by the Central government, state governments and the private sector. Inter-state transfer of renewable energy would be necessitated since all state governments are not able to provide land for the purpose. They deliberated at length on the importance of improving energy efficiency and lowering emissions. According to them, the major cause for inefficient use of energy in India is inefficient pricing. Judicious use of electricity can be ensured only when the user charges are able to recover the cost of production. And this is possible only when the state governments reform their power distribution system and introduce targeted direct transfer of subsidies to the vulnerable groups, they opined. It is highly possible for India to achieve Net Zero carbon emission for railways by 2040 and for road transportation by 2050 if the country puts in place the right incentives, the session observed. Enlightening and invigorating, the session opened up new avenues of thought in the crucial area of the generation and distribution of clean energy.
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Participants of the third RAMS programme hosted by the Training Academy of L&T Metro Rail Hyderabad Limited. RAMS stands for Reliability, Availability, Maintainability and Safety.
L&T Metro Rail [Hyderabad] Limited’s (L&TMRHL) in-house Training Academy runs various certificate courses to hone technical expertise of those working in India’s metro rail industry. In July, the Academy hosted the third programme on RAMS Management of Metro Rail Systems. Executives from various metro and railways business organisations participated. RAMS – which stands for reliability, availability, maintainability and safety – is a decision-making tool in the railway industry to improve operational efficiency. It’s a well-designed certificate course with practical exposure delivered by experts from India and abroad. The certificate course helps railway business organisations understand ways to improve the reliability of metro rail systems and sub-systems supplied by various manufacturers. This course is designed to benefit professionals from the railways / metro rail industry to establish a systematic approach and maintain RAMS parameters. The other significant certificate courses that the L&TMRHL Training Academy facilitated in the past include CBTC Signalling System, EMI-EMC, Safety Management, Asset Management System, Overview on Metro Rail Systems & Technology, Telecom Design for Metro & Railway Systems, etc. These specialised training courses help develop technical expertise in India’s ever-growing metro rail industry. They also help improve RAMS analysis and evaluation during design, implementation, and operations & maintenance. The Academy imparts training to meet the growing demand for skilled Operations Staff (station controller, train operator, traffic controller, etc.) and Maintenance Staff (rolling stock, signalling, telecom, OHE, PSS, track, etc). Its alumni are contributing to the metro rail industry in India and abroad. The Academy is planning new courses in interface management & system integration, reliability-centred maintenance practices, advanced quality management in O&M, etc.
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L&T-SuFin Head Mr Bhadresh Pathak felicitating a Morbi MSME representative.
L&T-SuFin, a B2B e-commerce company from L&T’s stable, is moving vigorously to tap India’s robust micro, small & medium enterprises (MSME) sector. L&T-SuFin is positioning itself as a one-stop platform in this segment. As part of the strategy, L&T-SuFin recently conducted a knowledge-sharing event for the Morbi Ceramic Manufacturers Association (MCMA) at Morbi in Gujarat. Morbi is known as a ceramic industry hub and there are hundreds of units manufacturing various types of ceramic tiles and sanitaryware. Titled “Finance Decoded on Vendor and Dealer Financing”, the event was hosted on 3 August and was attended by over 30 MSMEs and MCMA members. L&T-SuFin’s Business Head Mr Bhadresh Pathak and Chief Commercial Officer Mr Abhilash Pillai familiarised the attending manufacturers and sellers with the L&T-SuFin platform. Mr Kartik Iyer (Lead - Integrations & Operations) explained the vendor and dealer financing mechanism. Appreciating the knowledge-sharing event, MCMA office bearers, in turn, assured a long-term association between the Morbi ceramic cluster and L&T-SuFin. =========================================== LUMINOUS LUMIN Enterprises can now make decisions faster and with minimal effort, thanks to accessibility and composability of the latest version of Lumin. Lumin is one of the five offerings under the data-to-decisions product suite – Fosfor – that LTI launched in December 2021. The iOS mobile application brings the power of advanced analytics to business teams on the move with a familiar easy-to- use interactive voice interface. The ready-to-plug-in SDKs and APIs let developers directly embed Lumin’s capabilities on any business application – regardless of industry or use case.
Commenting on the latest update, Mr Satyakam Mohanty, Chief Product Officer for Fosfor, says: “Businesses are looking to bridge the gap between diagnostic and predictive insights and everyday decisions. Lumin’s latest 4.0 version further enhances its capabilities to provide a powerful hands-free approach to advanced analytics and democratises the accessibility of decision insights to anyone – at scale and speed.” Lumin empowers users with actionable insights that matter the most. It supports deployment options – including public cloud, private cloud, or on-premise – and is now also available on AWS marketplace with an Enterprise SaaS version to help customers start their decision intelligence journey faster.
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Chief guest Ms Swati Lakra interacts with an entrepreneur at Ameerpet Station Metro Bazar as Mr KVB Reddy and Mr NVS Reddy look on.
The lucky Metro winners are all smiles.
Hyderabad Metro Rail has come up with an innovative concept of Metro Bazar, #ShoppingOnTheGo. This is to empower women entrepreneurs while providing passengers a unique experiential shopping opportunity. Metro Bazar was launched at Ameerpet Station on 15 June by chief guest Ms Swati Lakra (Addl DGP – Women Safety Wing, SHE Teams & Bharosa, Telangana). Present on the occasion were Mr NVS Reddy (MD – Hyderabad Metro Rail Ltd (HMRL) and Mr KVB Reddy (MD & CEO – L&T Metro Rail(Hyderabad) Ltd) and others. This first edition of Metro Bazar was organised in partnership with Women Envision Council for Entrepreneurship (WomENvision), a non-profit working on empowering women entrepreneurs. Hyderabad Metro provided space on a no-cost basis, and the latter set up 14 stalls at the concourse of Ameerpet Station starting 15th June. The stalls had something for everyone – apparel, artworks, beauty and herbal products, food items, beverages and so on. Soon followed stalls at Expo Galleria near Punjagutta, MGBS, Dilsukhnagar, Uppal and Secunderabad (East) stations. Members of the Association of Lady Entrepreneurs of India also put up stalls at Ameerpet Station concourse from 9 to 23 July. About 15 women entrepreneurs sold items such as food, artifacts, and fabric – and sales were brisk. While giving a fillip to women’s entrepreneurship, the initiative is also benefiting metro passengers and, in turn, increasing ridership. Prizes for Pax Winning a prize always gives one a high. In yet another passenger-engagement initiative, L&TMRHL organised a lucky-draw under the Metro Suvarna Offer 2022. Five lucky winners were handed over their prizes at a grand ceremony at Ameerpet Station on 22 July. Here's the list of the winners and their prizes:
1st Prize: Mr T Kasi Reddy, Air-conditioner
2nd Prize: Mr G Lakshminarayana, Television
3rd Prize: Mr P Shawanth Shekhar, Washing machine
4th Prize: Mr S Sridhar Reddy, Refrigerator
5th Prize: Ms P Ramya, Microwave oven The Metro Suvarna Offer and monthly lucky draws are just two of the many popular marketing engagement activities conducted by L&TMRHL to enhance passenger engagement and ridership.
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The panel discussion on industry-academia collaboration explored ways to bridge the skill gap in Quantum Technology.
LTI CTO Mr Sandeep Deb delivering the keynote address.
Quantum technology is an emerging field of physics and engineering, encompassing technologies that rely on the properties of Quantum mechanics. It holds the potentials to build strong risk management protocols for banks, long-lasting vehicle battery solutions, aiding the development of self-driving cars in a connected ecosystem, multi- layer encryption solutions, and reduce medicine development cycles – all supported by cutting-edge Quantum programming.
LTI is employing a multifarious strategy to explore and integrate the advantages of Quantum technology into the digital solutions that it offers. As part of the move, LTI has partnered with IIT- Madras to set up an industry academia consortium for Quantum Technology and Quantum Computing, with projects focusing on research and innovation.
Together with IIT-Madras, it has developed two Deep point-of-views (PoVs) that focus on use cases for solving problems across industries using Quantum Technology and Quantum Computing. Further, it is engaged in developing Deep PoVs in Quantum Sensing and Quantum Communications. With the IIT-Madras partnership providing the base, in July LTI hosted Solving with Quantum – an event that saw India’s best minds in Quantum Technology across the industry and academia come together to share their perspective. The event was held in Chennai on 21-22 July. For the first time, the event brought together – on a single platform – top Quantum professors from IIT Madras, Quantum SMEs and specialists from top technology partners, top Quantum start-up firms, along with Quantum experts at LTI. The theme of the first day was AdventAge Quantum. Mr Sandeep Deb (Chief Technology Officer – LTI) offered valuable insights into LTI’s focus on building an inclusive partner ecosystem with high-end tech companies and leading academia in Quantum Computing and Quantum Cryptography. A detailed walkthrough of LTI’s PoV on Quantum Technology and Quantum Computing followed. Mr Sachin Jain (Sr Director - Global Technology Office, LTI) and Dr Chandrashekar Radhakrishnan (Principal Project Scientist – IIT-Madras) highlighted market potential, possible use cases, impact on various industries, and the viability of existing solutions in Quantum. Dr Anil Prabhakar (Professor – IIT-Madras) enunciated the need for skilled associates in the field of Quantum to harness this power for the betterment of society. This was followed by a panel discussion on disambiguating Quantum Technologies. The panel included Mr Achyuta Ghosh (Sr Director & Head – Insights, NASSCOM), Mr Dhinakaran Vinayagamurthy (Research Scientist - IBM India Research Lab & IBM Quantum Senior Ambassador), Mr Sunil Gupta (Co Founder and CEO - QNu), Mr Vikash Gaur (EVP - LTI) and Mr Pradeep Mishra (AVP & Technology Leader - LTI). On Day Two, 22 July, an industry-academia conclave brought together various stakeholders in Quantum Technology. Representatives from Pfizer, Goldman Sachs, KLA, Mphasis and IBM were in attendance, amongst others. According to an LTI spokesperson, Quantum Computing and Quantum Cryptography are the two main areas that the company has embarked on, commencing an exciting journey of exploration and solving challenges. More details on the topic are here https://www.lntinfotech.com/solving-with-quantum/.
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Organised by Nabha Power, the Go Green Cycle Marathon commences, taking the message of conservation to six villages in Punjab.
The event attracted more than 70 cycling enthusiasts.
Business and profitability are surely a priority to L&T, but not the only priorities. Rather, the overall progress and welfare of the geographies that the Company operates in are ingrained in its philosophy. Nabha Power Limite (NPL), a wholly owned subsidiary of L&T Power Development Limited, is no exception to this. To promote environmental awareness and a healthier lifestyle, NPL recently organised a Go Green Cycle Marathon in six villages at Rajpura in Patiala district of Punjab. Rajpura is where NPL operates its 2x700MW supercritical thermal plant and supplies the cheapest power to the Punjab State Power Corporation Ltd. The marathon, held on 2 September, attracted more than 70 cycle enthusiasts. Criss-crossing through six villages, the cyclists covered 11 km, amidst loud huzzahs from the populace who had gathered in great numbers to witness the event. Waving colourful flags, they shouted encouraging slogans all along the route. The cyclists were awarded medals and mementoes in appreciation of their zeal to promote environmental causes. The senior management of Nabha Power thanked Patiala’s civil and police administrations for providing the support needed to make the event impactful. Giving context to the initiative, NPL’s Chief Executive Mr S K Narang said: “To raise awareness about the current environmental issues and to promote the message of healthier and greener lifestyles, events like this should be conducted more often.” Besides cycling, Nabha Power encourages sports in the villages around its plant by organising tournaments and engaging coaches, from time to time, to help the local youth realise their sporting dreams.
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