Ten URJIT Clusters Announced As a Big Boost To Biotech Sector To Synergize Resources From Industries And Labs
On Monday, the Indian government announced its intentions to give the biotech sector a huge boost by setting up 10 URJIT (University Research of Joint Industry Translational) clusters. These biotech clusters will aid in the synergism of resources between industries and research labs.
The NRF (National Research Foundation) has been allocated a budget of ₹50,000 crores for a span of 5 years. Under this, national priority thrust areas are to be identified by R & D (Research & Development) institutions, which will be coordinated by umbrella structures formed by the clusters in 9 cities. These clusters will establish India as a bio-manufacturing hub with a robust ecosystem for research.
Talking about the ten URJIT clusters announced by the government, Harsh Vardhan the Union Science & Technology minister, said that universities would be specially focused on by the NRF to sustain scientists in various streams of research. NRF is essentially an autonomous body that a Prime Minister-appointed board governs. It is a foundation comprising accomplished scientific professionals and researchers. Harsh Vardhan also mentioned that the year
2021-22 would see a 30% budget increase for S&T and earth sciences ministry compared to 2020-21.Regarding the 9 cities to be involved, 6 of them, including Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, Bhubaneswar, Delhi-NCR, and Jodhpur, have already commenced as pilot clusters frameworks owing to their diverse industries and S&T-focused organizations and institutes that are well-developed and considerable in number. Pune has been announced as a cluster for research in human disease biology.
Apart from the ten URJIT clusters announced b the government, is a Deep Ocean Mission to be launched to explore deep-sea resources (like strategic metals) and conduct climate research. A PSU (Public Sector Undertaking) called NSIL (New Space India Limited) is also being planned under the department of space. The PSLV-CS51 carrying few small Indian satellites, and the Brazilian Amazonia satellite is expected to be launched with the ₹700 crore budget allocated to the NSIL.
Meanwhile, more focus will be shed on energy resources with the clean-energy initiative – Hydrogen Energy Mission. The government plans to leave no stone unturned when it comes to missions, including NLTM (National Language Translation Mission) that will use modern technology like AI to translate the information on the internet into certain Indian languages. There has already been an initiative to create an S&T Wikipedia in the Hindi language and other Indian regional languages with a separate program launched by the Department of Science and Technology.
Ten URJIT Clusters Announced
