The University of Kerala, perhaps the oldest University of the State, has innovations to cite even in its early years. The University’s approach to research was quite different from what is now in existence. Research and teaching were separate entities. Research happened in research laboratories that were coordinated by a Central Research Institute. This institute was housed in an old building that survives in a corner of the University Senate House Campus, adjacent to AKG Centre (earlier known as Gas House Junction, the spot housed a huge iron well to produce gas for use in laboratories).
The University of Travancore’s first research director was Dr. Moudgill Photo: Achuthsankar S. Nair
The University’s first research director was Dr. Moudgill, a Punjabi Professor of Chemistry, a product of Cambridge. It is not surprising that even today the Department of Chemistry of the University of Kerala is among its top research performers. The Second World War caused severe scarcity of petroleum products and the newly started State Road Transport Cooperation was badly hit.
C.P. Ramaswamy Iyer, the then Dewan of erstwhile Travancore, who was also Vice-Chancellor of the University of Travancore, directed the University to work on alternate fuels. The University succeeded in modifying engines to run on coconut shell charcoal gas and ran the buses at cheaper rates than diesel though the environment pollution may not have been evaluated then.
Travancore Information Listener of April 1941 says :“Experiments were conducted on the utilisation of charcoal gas as a fuel and yielded satisfactory results. Very soon it is hoped, most of the vehicles of the Transport Department will be run on charcoal gas, when a reduction of approximately 75 per cent on the fuel costs may be expected. Poweralcohol, manufactured by Travancore Sugars Chemicals Ltd., costing only 50 per cent of the price of petrol was mixed with petrol for use. High speed diesel oil was produced by the Research Laboratory of the Travancore University at a cost much below the market rates”.
The work of the University of Travancore in early years was linked to local needs and was mainly focussed on fuels, aquatic products, and natural/forest products.
Production of agar-agar, oil distillation, petroleum testing, several marine products including shark oil, plant derivatives, textile chemistry, forest products, clarification and sterilisation of forest honey, essential oils, and development of crude penicillin were taken up by the University.
Early patent attempts from the University of Travancore include an improved mica grinding machine by D.L. Deshpande (College of Engineering, Trivandrum) in 1943; a new method for obtaining baking enamel from cashew shell fluid by K.S. Madhavan Pillai, (University College) in1943; process for reconditioning of paper and hand machine for printing sari borders by M.P. Gopalan Nair and K. Kylas (Institute of Textile Technology) in 1944 ; new method for chemical treatment of Monotile by R. Velayudhan Nair and new anti-oxidant for shark liver oil by T. A. Ramakrishnan in 1945.
After 1940, there was a large gap of a quarter century before another patent attempt arose from the University.
It was on a ‘Method for the manufacture of a protein and Polysaccharide fraction from black gram’, granted to the University in 1973 to late Dr. P.A. Kurup, an eminent scientist from the Department of Biochemistry, who became the first patent holder of the University.
Academic Research of the University also began in its early years.
In the first meeting of the syndicate of the University of Travancore held on July 15, 1938, chaired by C.P. Ramaswamy Iyer, nine students were given registration to do research.
S. Jones who proposed to work on ‘Entomological problems of Travancore’ under Dr. P.V. Nair and A. Narayanan Potti, who chose ‘Active principles of Cerbera Odallum’, were the first two Ph.D students of the University.
(To be continued)
