Starved of central funds, research at SACON comes to naught

Coimbatore: Scientists at the Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History in Coimbatore are in distress after the central government stopped funding it since March this year. With scant funds, no research has taken up in the past few months, said scientists at the institute. The government proposes to make SACON, a centre of excellence, into an autonomous institution.

Sources at the institute said several research work had been held up due to lack of funding. Salary and maintenance used to be supported by the Union ministry of environment, forest and climate change. There are 10 such centres of excellences across the country under the ministry. Funding for all these institutes have stopped. "Some were not dependent on the ministry for support, but institutes like SACON were heavily dependent on the funding. So scientists in these institutes are in huge distress. But things are looking up as the government has promised to sanction funds for this year," said a source.

However, director of the institute K Shankar told TOI that there was no such issue at all. "We did not have any funding gap. We have enough funds. The proposal to convert it into an autonomous institution is still on paper," he said.

A senior scientist from Chennai said on the condition of anonymity that as the Five Year Plan of the government ended, the funding also stopped. "The government proposed that we should get financial support from industries for our projects. But that will create an unhealthy environment for scientists as many of our research work goes against the industry. We cannot work for the betterment of society if the funding has to come from the industry," he said.

After several meetings, the situation seemed to have improved, said another source. "Though nothing has been finalised, two weeks ago the government sanctioned enough funds for this year's research projects. But the future is bleak," said the source.

Research institutes function differently. Some depend on the ministry for survival and some, for research funding. "We depend on the ministry for survival," said a source at SACON.