NEW DELHI: Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh today called upon the scientists of different Ministries and Departments to further enhance collaboration in the field of Research & Development and institutionalise it, so that the dependence on imports can be reduced to the minimum extent.
Addressing the first-ever Joint Meeting of all the Science Ministries and Departments here today, the Minister emphasized on the need for a ground level collaboration among all the science ministries to further step up research and development activities and also collaboration with industries and corporate houses. He said , today’s initiative will pave the way for a larger and extended integration of scientific endeavours across the spectrum and pooling them for a healthy synergism.
Dr Jitendra Singh said that the present cooperation in scientific and human resource sectors needs to be streamlined and efforts should be made to give shape to an institutional mechanism at the earliest. The Minister lauded the excellent R&D efforts being made by private sector industries. The Minister pointed out that while different Science Ministries are making note-worthy contribution to nation building, they should not be working in isolation or in silos. While touching upon Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s mandate that scientific endeavour should be citizen-centric, the Minister opined that the performance of Science Ministries and Departments should impact the lives of the common man and bring ease of living.
Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government Professor K Vijayaraghavan, Secretaries of the Department of Atomic Energy, Science &Technology, Earth Sciences, Department of Biotechnology and other senior scientists participated in the brainstorming session. Chairman ISRO & Secretary Department of Space Dr.K Sivan who joined the meeting virtually, reiterated the importance of such a collaboration.
In the concluding session of the meeting, Dr. Jitendra Singh said that such inter-ministerial meetings will be held every month so as to evolve an institutional mechanism. Subsequently efforts will be made to extend such collaboration outside the Government also, he added.
