Nuclear scientist Sekhar Basu dies of Covid-19

MUMBAI: Eminent nuclear scientist

Padma Shri Sekhar Basu

, 68, passed away in the early hours of Thursday. Basu was the former chairman of

Atomic Energy Commission

(AEC) and secretary of the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) and has also served as the

director

of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC). He passed away at a private hospital in Kolkata, where he was undergoing treatment for Covid-19.


Basu was known to be a champion of mega-science projects. He played a key role in establishing India as a

lead country

in various domains of

nuclear science

and engineering. He worked as the project director of

Nuclear Submarine

Programme and later as the chief executive of the Nuclear Recycle Board. Under his leadership, a major challenge of design and construction of the first-of-its-kind Integrated Nuclear Recycle Plant in India was taken up.

The pace of nuclear power deployment, uranium exploration and mining, health care and mega science projects were accelerated under his leadership. He is one of the architects of the water reactor powering India's first nuclear-powered submarine INS Arihant.

Nuclear scientist, Dr Anil Kakodkar, former AEC chairman, who worked with Basu closely since 1996, said that his death is unfortunate and a great personal loss to him. "He had an unparalleled ability to take up difficult projects, iron out all the difficulties and to make them successful. He did excellent work in the nuclear submarine reactor and nuclear recycle plant. In fact, the country is performing well in these areas due to his rich contributions," said Kakodkar.

He was shuttling between Mumbai and Kolkata for work. Even post retirement he had taken up mentorship roles in areas of atomic energy and was involved with the

Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre

, a DAE unit in Kolkata. He was admitted to the hospital a few days ago.

"He was an extremely competent technologist with an ability to integrate multi-disciplinary activities and develop multiple state of the art technology systems. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 2014. One of the last projects in which he had taken keen interest was to develop the technology of cyclotron for medical isotope production," said a statement issued by the Department of Atomic Energy.

Basu had done his schooling from

Ballygunge Government School

in Kolkata and then graduated in mechanical engineering from VJTI, Mumbai in 1974.
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