Sustainable Progress through Application of Research and Knowledge
iasparliament
April 20, 2017
Why in news?
Earlier in 2017, top administrators in Indian science submitted a detailed project report to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
It has reviewed portions of the 48-page report, titled Vigyan 2030: Science and Technology as the Pivot for Jobs, Opportunities and National Transformation.
What did the report say?
The report said that the stature of Indian science is a shadow of what it used to be because of decades of misguided interventions.
We have lost self-confidence and ambition and the ability to recognise excellence amongst our own and we often chose the mediocre at every level.
One of its key recommendations is to have an independent science and technology authority that will have two parallel arms.
SPARK (Sustainable Progress through Application of Research and Knowledge), as the body is tentatively named, will be overarching yet have “light touch” governance.
A discovery arm: that can organise the expertise of various organisations across states and regions to solve a basic research problem.
A delivery arm: that will closely work with industry and evolve public private partnerships.
Such an authority will directly report to the Prime Minister.
What are the concerns/challenges?
All very good, except that India already has bodies that were conceived as umbrella organisations that can pool the intellectual and technological resources of organisations and direct them towards specific missions.
The Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India is one such office.
Though they have no dearth of eminent, experienced scientists, they haven’t substantially vaulted S&T in the country either.
The CSIR faces its own challenges of effectively translating its know-how. Scientific departments in India, have bureaucracies of their own.
They battle the dilemma of having to take bold, expensive risks that science by its very nature requires and on the other hand, be accountable to the Finance Ministry.
Not only does a new overarching body run the risk of upsetting someone but it will also be a challenge to exert solemn authority without being a cantankerous accountant.
It has to ensure that good ideas beyond the Indian Institutes of Technology and Science don’t die out for lack of funds or recommendations from influential scientists.
Any new idea, to rejuvenate the administration of science, must also ensure continuity.
A change of government and new leaders has frequently meant ‘new priorities’ and the infant-death syndrome for the bold experiment.
