Countrywide S&T infrastructure facilities to be accessible to industry & startups

 Startups and industries will soon have access to equipment and S&T infrastructure in different institutions, universities, and colleges spread all over the country to carry out experiments and tests they require for their R&D, technology, and product development.

DST is restructuring its FIST (Fund for Improvement of S&T Infrastructure in Universities and Higher Educational institutions) programme under which it supports scaling up ofthe network ofinfrastructural facilities for teaching and research in Universities and higher educational institutions to cater to high-end S&T infrastructural requirements of startups and industries.

“The immensely successful FIST programme will now be reinvented to FIST 2.0 to orient it towards the goal of Atmanirbhar Bharat so as to create R&D infrastructure not only for experimental work but also to cater to theoretical work, ideas and entrepreneurship. This will create a new paradigm for FIST 2.0,” said Dr. Sanjay Dhande, the new chairperson of FIST Advisory Board. 

It will also link up programmes like FIST, Sophisticated Analytical Instrument Facilities (SAIF), and Sophisticated Analytical & Technical Help Institutes (SATHI), all of which are designed to set up S&T infrastructure centres at different levels –department, university, regional and national level respectively.

At present, while on an average of about 8,500 researchers use these facilities spread in centres all over India, industries, and startups involved in R&D, technology, and product development have to carry out most high-end experiments and testing of technologies from laboratories outside India. This is because they prefer not to buy equipment and infrastructure which are of limited usage to them, and they cannot access most of the high-end S&T infrastructure set up in the universities and institutions. Till 2019, about 2910 S&T departments and PG colleges have been supported with a total investment of about Rs 2970 crores under FIST. In SAIF, 15 centres have been funded while SATHI has three centres running and more be supported under the R& D infrastructure division.

The S&T infrastructure network would now reach out to more beneficiaries and focus on alignment with some of the National Missions and Sustainable Development Goals as well as towards technology translational research promoting different start-ups and industries. The restructuring would also entail a shift from discipline (tool-centric) based research to interdisciplinary problem solution-centric research.

This would not only encourage Indian-origin researchers in academic institutes and research organizations across the world and resident counterparts to explore collaborative joint ventures to strengthen the S&T base in India for global development but would also enrol industry in R&D endeavor to bring about direct benefits for the society. 

Prof Ashutosh Sharma, Secretary, Department of Science and Technology, added, “There is a huge investment in the creation of S&T infrastructure in the country running into several tens of thousands of crores every year in the country, which will bring manifold value with effective and transparent sharing practices with the ease of use. In view of this, DST is also currently formulating a policy on the best practices for the creation, effective use, sharing, maintenance, skill generation, and disposal of the S&T infrastructure.”

Programme for the benefit of artisans involved in manufacturing of Agarbatti

Ministry of Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME), Government of India, approved a programme for the benefit of artisans involved in manufacturing of Agarbatti and to develop village industry under ‘Gramodyog Vikas Yojana’ on 30^thJuly 2020. As per the programme, initially four Pilot Projects will be started, including one in North Eastern part of the country. Each targeted cluster of artisans will be supported with about 50 Automatic Agarbatti making machines and 10 Mixing machines.Accordingly, a total of 200 Automatic Agarbatti making machines and 40 Mixing machines will be provided to the artisans.

After two major decisions by Govt of India i) placing the ‘Agarbatti’ item from “Free” trade to “Restricted” trade in the import policy and ii) enhancing the import duty from 10% to 25% on ‘round bamboo sticks’ used for manufacturing of Agarbatti, this decision will help to boost the indigenous production of ‘Agarbatti’and will pave way to generate rural employment. This will also start the process of mitigating the gap between the indigenous ‘production and demand’ and will reduce import of ‘Agarbatti’ in the country.

The programme aims to enhance the production of ‘Agarbatti’ in the country and create sustainable employment for the traditional Artisans, by providing them regular employment and increase in their wages. This will give a boost to the domestic Agarbatti Industry in the country and will reduce imports of Agarbatti.

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Government of India encouraging start-ups in the field of agriculture.

The Union Government accords very high priority to the agriculture sector. In order to contribute directly and indirectly to enhancing the income of farmers by providing opportunites to them and to provide employment to youth, start-ups are being encouraged.    Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Rural Development and Panchayati Raj Shri Narendra Singh Tomar stated that as emphasised by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, new technology in the field of agriculture and allied sectors through start-ups and agripreneurship should be promoted. Therefore, under the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana, the innovation and agripreneurship component has been promoted. For the year 2020-21, in the first phase, 112 startups in the area of agro processing, food technology and value addition will be funded for  a sum of Rs. 1185.90 lakhswhich will contribute to enhancing the income of farmers. 

112 Startups selected by different knowledge partners and agribusiness incubators in the area of Agro-processing, Food Technology and Value addition will be funded in the first phase for a sum of Rs. 1185.90 lakh. This fund will be released in installments. These start-ups were trained for two months at 29 agribusiness incubation centres (KPs & RABIs) spread across India. These start-ups will lead to employment to youth. Besides, they, directly and indirectly, will contribute to enhancing the income of farmers by providing opportunities to them. For more details on Agri-entrepreneurship, RKVY website: https://rkvy.nic.in may be visited.

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