An award that recognizes contribution PCRA 2004

An award that recognizes contribution
By Suvira Srivastav
‘Together, can we do it?’ asks the advertisement of the PCRA (Petroleum Conservation Research Association) Energy Conservation Awards 2003. And, TERI’s Bangalore office, the winner of both the Best Energy Auditors and Best Performance Improvement Award, has shown that a lot can be achieved in conservation.
‘This award’ writes Leena Mehendale, Executive Director, PCRA, to M K Halpeth, Fellow and Head of TERI’s Southern Regional centre, ‘proposes to honour and award individuals and organizations who have made outstanding contribution towards the cause of conservation of petroleum products’. This is because PCRA believes that, ‘Where conservation fails, pollution starts. And, where pollution ends, efficiency begins.’
So, the PCRA ‘Best Energy Auditors’ and ‘Best Performance’ awards were constituted and applications invited from corporates, organizations, and consultants, operating in the field.
Accordingly Halpeth adds, ‘We had sent full details of work done in the energy audits listing out details on energy saving opportunities, which helped the industries to initiate action for implementation and achieve energy savings. The feed back of three years work indicates that at least 60% of the identified saving potential mostly with the payback period of two years or less have already been implemented.’
The type of industries identified for this kind of saving by PCRA encompassed almost a gamut of industrial giants from iron and steel, paper and pulp, textiles, fertilizers, chemicals, to refineries.
Some other categories floated for the exemplary work in energy conservation involved small, medium and large projects.
All these awards were given to the respective winners on 30 January 2004, at a valedictory function of the Oil and Gas Conservation fortnight in Teen Murthi Bhavan, New Delhi.