Article Posted on : - Dec 15, 2010

NEW DELHI (BNS): A US firm has shown ‘keen interest’ to procure the Explosive Detection Kit (EDK) developed by the Indian Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).

An agreement on Transfer of Technology is likely to be signed soon between the two sides, according to an Indian MoD release.

Costing about Rupees 5,000 apiece, the EDK is being commercially made by Noida-based Vantage Integrated Security Solutions Pvt Ltd under a Transfer of Technology pact with the DRDO.

The US firm is soon to enter into a MoU with the DRDO, which has patented its EDK.

“The Americans have their own EDK kits but the foreign technology has certain drawbacks, for example they lack confirmatory test,” Reny Roy, a scientist at the HEMRL, said in the release.

“Since they use a test paper instead of liquid drops, that’s another disadvantage as the test paper is not long lasting and gets torn,” she added.

The Explosive Detection Kit contains four reagents capable of detecting explosives even in trace quantities. It can be used to identify a range of explosives such as PETN, Black Powder, Dynamite, NC, NG, CE, Inorganic Mitrates, TNT, RDX and HMX based plastic explosives.

The EDK kit can be easily carried to the spot and is found useful both before and after the blast. When the explosive substance is mixed with the different chemical reagents given in the kit, the drop turns into specific colour as given out in the instruction leaflet. Verification can normally follow using the Raman spectrometric test.

It is being widely used by the Bomb Detection and Disposal Squads of the Army, Paramilitary and state Police Forces in Jammu and Kashmir, Assam, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.