Union Minister of State for Defence, Dr. Subhash Bhamre today laid the foundation stone for the construction of DRDO established IIT Bombay & IIT Madras bi-nodal 'Centre of Propulsion Technology' (CoPT) at the IIT Bombay premises in Mumbai today.<br/><br/>Speaking on the occasion, Dr. Bhamre said, today is an important day in the area of Defence-Research and Development targeting high end technologies for self-reliance in defence under the ambit of Make in India initiative of Govt. of India. The minister said, this type of Academic-Research and Development interaction has been launched for the first time in India, perhaps even in the world. <br/><br/>He further said, anchored at the two primary nodes (IIT Bombay and IIT Madras), the CoPT will serve as an umbrella to bring together all technical experts in the country regardless of affiliation and geography, with a single point agenda of solving problems towards development of specific, new, advanced and futuristic propulsion products. <br/><br/>Dr. Bhamre said, participation of many young and very talented faculty members offers room for optimism that a whiff of fresh air on inter-disciplinary collaborative research on really intricate problems can truly be hoped for. DRDO Chairman Dr. S Christopher also presided over the function. Director of IIT Bombay Prof. Devang Khakhar, Director of IIT Madras Prof. Bhaskar Ramamurthi and the Chief Controller of DRDO Mr. MH Rahaman were also present on the occasion.<br/><br/>An agreement was entered into on July 9 this year at IIT Bombay amongst DRDO, IIT Bombay and IIT Madras for establishing the CoPT. The CoPT is envisaged to emerge as a centre of excellence, conducting basic and applied research in the areas of aero-propulsion technologies, and achieve recognition as one among the best research centres in the world in its domain within the next decade.