Lanka gearing-up to add value to local spices

BY AFREEHA Jawad

IF THINGS run to schedule, hopefully Sri Lanka will have its first Synthesis Laboratory by next mid year. Taking this task to completion will be Dr. K. P. A. Senaratne - back home after 30 years in the US.

He rejoins Industrial Technology Institute (formerly CISIR) as Deputy Director, Technical Services, having worked there earlier in '73 with the Natural Products section. While in the US the 20 year industrial research experience in synthetic chemistry - his forte - was gateway to his 13 patents.

According to him, some of the finest raw material found here are now into value addition in foreign climes, bringing them big monies. For instance, cinnamon, citronella, lemon grass and clove oils - all natural and standard export products when into value addition are to others' benefit.

France makes some of the most expensive perfumes with citronella oil. Eucalyptus oil is exported and converted into insect repellents and expensive pharmaceuticals.

This is where the Synthesized Laboratory will come in so useful.

Apart from adding value to our raw material we could even import such and do very much the same in that type of environment. We could also save lots of money through this endeavour because as it is others are minting money through us - the difference between price of raw material and finished product being thousand fold.

Lots of developing countries are into this but currently the biggest hurdle confronting Dr. Senaratne is the non-availability of suitable chemists. "I've already got just one lady from Jaffna. Nevertheless it's a hurdle that could be overcome by training our people abroad," he said.

Ironically Sri Lanka though known to churn Synthetic Chemists for the past 30 years or more - none is around. Maybe they've gone to greener pastures.

Dr. Senaratne hailing ITI's state-of-the-art equipment believes the environment here to be right to set up such a lab. "All it needs is trained people and by mid next year we will have a workable plan," he said.

"We could cut down import costs by making the chemicals we need," he said.

He also informed how when the West develops a drug, it is put through rigorous agency testing. The US Federal Drug Agency is the drug approving body without which no drug makes market entry.

The sub-contracts to produce small amounts of drugs needed to be presented before the FDA are currently given to India, Korea, China and Malaysia. We hope to eventually tap this market for which the laboratory is needed.

This though a dollar filling venture to Sri Lanka would be a helping agent to multinational companies. What of our own Ayurvedic drugs? Why cannot we propagate such worldwide and how could we do so? Dr. Senaratne was most positive in his reply:

"What we've got to do for this is to make Ayurvedic physicians, Western doctors and scientists to collaborate instead of working in individual pockets."

The Minister of Science and Technology Professor Tissa Vitharana is not unmindful of indigenous knowledge. Grass roots knowledge based capital is currently interacting with technology centres at district level under the 'Vidaatha' program initiated by him.

It's a joint effort of urban technology centres and the rural areas' technology needs. Both in fact learn from one another's knowledge. What's more these centre based scientists are themselves from the villages and are familiar with its needs. However, the venture is not without its bottlenecks - nevertheless a good start," he informs.

What crossed this writer's mind at this point was the dislodge of policy following government changes, however good that policy may be. The need to keep going all such is important taking a cue from India regardless of who is in power without which development is only a dream.