38 ministries seek technical support, says Union Minister for Science & Technology

Union Minister for Science & Technology Dr. Jitendra Singh has said that 38 ministries have sought technology support in different sectors.

As many as 38 ministries in Govt of India have sought technology support in different sectors, confirmed the Union Minister for Science & Technology Dr. Jitendra Singh. He said, over 200 proposals were received from 38 Line Ministries for Scientific Applications and Technological Support & Solutions by all the six Science & Technology departments including Space and Atomic energy.

He added that after the unlocking of the Space Sector for private players, the start-ups are coming in a big way to explore the untapped potential and over 50 start-ups are working in the Space Sector and about 10 of them are having funding of more than INR 50 Crore or more individually.

"The Minister was presiding over a high - level joint meeting of all the Science Ministries and Science Departments at Prithvi Bhawan here. The meeting was attended by Shri Bhaskar Khulbe, Advisor to Prime Minister, Prof. K VijayRaghavan, Principal Scientific Adviser, Government of India, Dr Shekhar Mande, Secretary CSIR, Dr. M. Ravichandran Secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Dr S. Chandrasekhar, Secretary Department of Science & Technology, Dr Rajesh Gokhale Secretary Department of Biotechnology, Shri S. Somanath, Secretary Space & Chairman ISRO, Dr K.N. Vyas, Secretary Atomic Energy, Hemang Jani, Secretary Capacity Building Commission and other senior officials," said the official release.

Jitendra Singh said, "Concerned Science Ministries and Departments are on the job applying different scientific solutions for sectors like sewage cleaning, food, education, skill, railways, roads, Jal Shakti, power, coal, agriculture, land mapping, and dairy."

Joint Working Groups are being set up between Science Departments and Line Ministries to speed up the identification of the scientific applications for proposals and problems of Line Ministries, he confirmed.

A template is being prepared with the support of Capacity Building Commission to take up theme wise deliberations between Centre and States/UTs depending on specific needs, from place to place. Various states have varying capacities but all of them are on board to work jointly with the Centre in areas like R&D, Innovation and STI Ecosystem.

Gujarat is the only state in the country to have an S&T policy, but after brainstorming sessions for the last four months, 11 more states including Sikkim, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh are preparing their S&T policy.

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