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, Chennai during February 2001 with the explicit objective of bringing the experimentalists and theorists in this field together . The INO collaboration was formed during this meeting . The first formal meeting of the collaboration was held in the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research , Mumbai , during 6 and 7 September 2001 at which various subgroups were formed for studying the detector options and electronics , physics goals and simulations , and site survey .
In 2002 , a document was presented to the Department of Atomic Energy , ( DAE ) which laid out an ambitious goal of establishing an India-based Neutrino Observatory , outlining the physics goals , possible choices for the detector and their physics . Since then many new and fast paced developments have taken place in neutrino physics . The award of the Nobel Prize in Physics ( 2002 ) to the pioneers in neutrino physics is a measure of the importance of this field .
Simulated Large Hadron Collider CMS particle detector data depicting a Higgs boson produced by colliding protons decaying into hadron jets and electrons
As a result of the support received from various research institutes , universities , the scientific community and the funding agency , the Department of Atomic Energy , a Neutrino Collaboration Group ( NCG ) was established to study the possibility of building an India-based Neutrino Observatory ( INO ). The collaboration was assigned the task of doing the feasibility studies for which funds were made available by the DAE . A memorandum of understanding ( MoU ) was signed by the directors of the participating institutes on August 30 , 2002 to enable a smooth functioning of the NCG during the feasibility period . The NCG has the goal of creating an underground neutrino laboratory with the long-term goal of conducting decisive experiments in neutrino physics as also other experiments which require such a unique underground facility .
April , 2016