S&T dept seeks approval from Centre for tech clusters

BENGALURU: “What we exhibited in science and technology during the Covid pandemic is the tip of the iceberg. We need to collectively come together and blur boundaries between the public and private, universities and research institutes  and create a strong foundation even in tier three cities,” said Renu Swarup, secretary, Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology.

Delivering the M J Thirumalachar and M J Narasimhan Endowment Lecture, hosted by the IISc on New and Emerging Technologies: Key Drivers of Bioeconomy Growth, she said the Department of Science and Technology has so far been responsible in empowering startups and small industries to take technologies from labs to markets. “More than 750 of our active startups have been valued at more than Rs 3,500 crore,” she added.

Now, the department is trying to establish technology clusters for startups that are too big for an incubator and too small for industrial parks. “We are trying to get necessary approvals from the government,” she said.India was self-reliant in 90 days with 200 Covid-19 diagnostic kits approved by ICMR. Of them, 100 were indigenously developed. The largest manufacturing hub setup in Visakhapatnam completed 100 lakh kits on January 5, she said.

The speed at which Covid vaccines moved was also interesting. A wonderful ecosystem was created, clinical trial sites were setup to facilitate vaccine development, academia and industry collaboration was evident and global partnerships were established for Covid accelerators, she said.