At 42, NAL has many deeds to boast of

bangalore: the national aerospace laboratories (nal) is now 42 years old. a constituent of council of scientific and industrial research (csir), the nal will celebrate its foundation day on august 20. a pioneer in the field of aeronautics and allied disciplines, nal has made very significant contributions to all indian aerospace programmes; often even setting the national agenda for such programmes.during the last decade, nal has spearheaded the effort to design and develop small and medium-sized aircraft for the civil sector. according to nal director dr t.s. prahlad, the real strength of his organisation lies in its vast reservoir of expertise and facilities created over the years. ``with this imposing infrastructure, nal has been very successful in obtaining a large number of r&d contracts for testing and subsystem development for various national programmes as well as industries all over india and abroad,'' he said. in the last decade, nal undertook approximately 400 projects worth about $60 million. ``over the last few years, nal has earned more than 60 per cent of its budget through external resources,'' prahlad said.