1. BACKGROUND :
1.1 The need for the revision  

The visits abroad of the CSIR Personnel are presently governed by the internal Guidelines for Visits Abroad of Csir Scientists first formulated in 1978, and later revised in 1987. The oiginal guidelines were proposed by the committee under the Chairmanship of Dr. S. Varadarajan, the then Chairman EIL and IPCL. The revision was subsequently made in April 1986 by the committee under the Chairmanship of Dr. L.K.Doraiswamy, the then Director, NCL, Pune and adopted by CSIR in 1987.

The telling need and the mounting pressure for revising, shaping and veering the 1987 Foreign Deputation Guidelines round to the target CSIR 2001, are because of the :
1.1.1 Unprecedented demand raised by the proclamation of CSIR 2001- Vision and Strategy. It calls for marshalling all the resources, and putting these on to an optimal, effective and timely used, particularly in managing its Internation Science & Technology Arrairs.
1.1.2 Need to keep pace with the dynamics of change in a highly comples turbulenet, competitive and rapidly changing international S&T domain
1.1.3 Rising hopes, aspirations and perception of the CSIR's highly qualified and trained manpower spread over its 40 nationa laboratories.
1.1.4 Increase in the movement of scientists and the growth in numbers & frequency expected due to plethora of new initiatives, including marketing of CSIR technologies, forgin of new international business equations and research partnerships, signing & implementation of bilateral and multilateral collaborative programmes, and promotion of international training and retraining etc.
1.1.5 compelling need to deliver operational efficiency and speed effectiveness to net in opportunities which would have ordinarily been lost.
1.1.6 Desire to achieve a tight coupling between Research and its applications at the macro and the micro levels.
1.1.7 Need to learn from the past experience, and feedback obtained from the national laboratories during last 18 years of implementation of The Guidelines, Added to this is the need to streamline procedures and remove anomalies and bottlenecks.
The spading of 9 years between the years of revision of Guidelines i.e. 1978, 1987 and 1996. turns out to be a hat trick.
1.2 Composition of the Foreign Deputation Committee (FDC)
In view of the above, a FDC was constituted by the Director General, CSIR in October 1995 under the Chairmanship of Dr. G. Thyagarajan, a former CSIR Director with the following membership:
Shri N.C. Aggarwal Financial Advisor, CSIR
Dr.E.Desa Director, national Institute of Oceanography
Shri K.N. Johry Director, NAM S&T Centre
Shri Dilip Kumar Jt. Secretary (Admn.), CSIR
Dr. T.S.R. Prasada Rao Director, Indian Institute of Petroleum
Dr. P. Ramachandra Rao Director, national Metallurgical Laboratory
Dr. R.K. Bhandari Head, International S&T Affiars Directorate, CSIR- the member secretary
1.3 Terms of Reference (ToR) of the FDC
1.3.1 Formulate guidelines for visits abroad of CSIR Personnel with particular reference to:-
1.3.1.1 Participation in Internationa Conferences, Workshops, Symposia, Trade Expositions and Trade Fairs.
1.3.1.2 Training, including equipment training.
1.3.1.3 Foreign visits on award of Fellowships/Scholarships.
1.3.1.4 Foreign visits and deputations connected with CSIR's research developments and business plans
1.3.1.5 Visits abroad as a part of devegations constituted by Government, Academies and Professional Bodies.
1.3.1.6 Overseas visits for higher studies and assignments.
1.3.1.7 Bilateral Exchange Programmes.
1.3.1.8 Joint R&D and other projects.
1.3.2 Make recommendations on the ways and means of boosting the capacity of the CSIR system in general and of the scientists in particular to derive the best advantage of oversease visits and deputations.
1.3.3 Make recommendations on the follow-up of visits and utilisation of feedback in strategic planning of future S&T programmes.
1.3.4 Simplify procedures for processing of cases of deputation abroad.
1.3.5 Critically examine the current rules and guidelines with particular reference to study/special leave, execution of bond, retention of staff quaters and such other issues.
1.3.6 Review the Guidelines on financial aspects of overseas visits including travel, daily allowance (DA) etc.
1.3.7 Formulation of Guidelines for visits of overseas scientists on invitation from CSIR.
1.3.8 Formulation of Guidelines on study tours.
1.3.9 Sabbatical leave.
The revised Guidelines designated as "Guidelines-1996 for Oversease Visits of (A) CSIR Personal (B) CSIR supported other Indian scientists (C) Foreitn scientists to CSIR", this web site, has come into force with effect from july, 1996.
The Guidelines-1996 supercede Suidelines 1987, and other earlier instructions issued from time to time.