Visitors on the Raman Research Institute in Bengaluru throughout Open Day 2023 to rejoice National Science Day on February 28, 2023. The Institute is proposed to be merged with the Bengaluru-based Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, as per a rationalisation train taken by the Department of Science and Technology.
| Photo Credit: The Hindu
The Department of Science and Technology (DST), which is the principle supply of funds and sustenance for at the least 30 autonomous research our bodies — some of them of international status — is within the center of a “rationalisation” train that includes merging, “disengaging” and even closure of some organisations.
The DST train is a component of a bigger mission initiated by the Centre to cut back the quantity of autonomous institutions funded by numerous Ministries. A high-level committee led by Ratan Wattal, Principal Advisor of NITI Aayog, had undertaken a assessment of autonomous our bodies in 2017. This 12 months the DST has budgeted ₹1,225 crore for its autonomous institutions, or a bit of over 15% of its roughly ₹8,000-crore funds.
A media report had highlighted in 2021 that the Finance Ministry really useful 83 of the 231 autonomous our bodies to be retained and 117 merged into 29 entities. It really useful that the Centre “disengage” from 20 entities. The division additionally proposed that seven autonomous our bodies be closed. After rationalisation is accomplished, solely 111 autonomous our bodies would stay. However, particulars of the structural adjustments proposed to DST’s autonomous institutions haven’t been beforehand reported.
This doc, considered by The Hindu and dated 2020, says that as regards to the 30 autonomous our bodies (coming underneath the DST), the Finance Ministry really useful that eight be retained with out change, 18 be merged into two, the federal government disengage from three and one – Vigyan Prasar – be wound up and its features be carried out by the Ministry. Vigyan Prasar, an autonomous physique arrange in 1989 and tasked with science popularisation, is progressively being wound down with a number of employees members confirming to The Hindu on situation of anonymity that the organisation wouldn’t survive the 12 months with many features, together with a science TV channel, already ending operations and plenty of contractual positions terminated. There has been no official communication to Vigyan Prasar staff on the organisation’s future.
Among these to be merged, in keeping with the doc, are the Raman Research Institute (RRI), Bangalore – based in 1948 by Sir C.V. Raman and among the many nation’s prime institutes for research into theoretical and high-energy physics, in addition to the S.N. Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences and the Bose Institute, each in Kolkata. RRI is proposed to be merged with the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore, and the latter two Kolkata institutes with the Indian Association for Cultivation of Sciences, additionally positioned at Kolkata. Two science academies – the Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi, and the National Academy of Sciences (NASI), Allahabad, will likely be merged into the Indian Association of Science (sic). (While India doesn’t have a science academy by that identify, there’s the Bangalore-based Indian Academy of Sciences. The Hindu couldn’t set up if this was a typographical error). The Technology Information and Forecasting Council (TIFAC), New Delhi, the Indian National Academy of Engineering and the Indian Science Congress Association, which organises the annual Indian Science Congress with Prime Ministers in attendance because the instances of Jawaharlal Nehru, have been really useful to grow to be “corporatised” and Section-8 firms.
S. Chandrasekhar, Secretary, Department of Science and Technology (DST) instructed The Hindu the rationalisation train was nonetheless ongoing; nonetheless, mergers didn’t suggest that the institutions would see budgetary cuts or discount in employees. “Nothing is being closed or merged. It is just that certain administrative functions will be streamlined. Both the Department of Biotechnology and the Ministry of Earth Sciences [MoES] have undertaken a similar exercise,” stated Chandrasekhar. ”The broader goal of the train is minimal authorities and most governance. Some institutes had been structured as trusts, some as societies, some as research institutes… some are paid too much less. We are nonetheless finding out the easiest way to organise them.”
He added that some of the institutional mergers proposed within the NITI Aayog doc “would never happen”. “We need all these scientists, students, and lab equipment. It’s a time-taking process. The sheer diversity of institutions and the times [some prior to Independence] they were established make it a complicated exercise,” he added.
Mr. Chandrashekhar didn’t elaborate on a timeline for Vigyan Prasar however stated that the “charter of the institute and the ways to improve visibility of each activity [science popularisation, communication] were being reviewed.”
The Ministry of Earth Sciences in early 2022 introduced its 5 sister institutes – together with the India Meteorological Department – underneath a typical ‘virtual’ construction however every institute retains its unbiased identification. The Department of Biotechnology merged 14 autonomous institutions underneath it into an apex physique known as the Biotechnology Research and Innovation Council (BRIC) final December. The 39 laboratories of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) have, since their inception, been half of a society headed by the Prime Minister of India.
The Finance Ministry’s rationale behind ‘rationalising’ autonomous our bodies in India was that there have been almost 679 autonomous our bodies with about half arrange as ‘societies’ and 55 arrange as trusts and 239 underneath Acts of Parliament. “The ideal financial proposition demands these bodies be self-sustaining or minimally dependent upon budgetary resources in keeping with their functional and financial autonomy, [however] most of the bodies are largely dependent upon Grants-in-Aid from the government,” the report notes. “The purpose of the report is to make specific and actionable recommendations for rationalisation of autonomous bodies in the DST to furthering “minimum government and maximum governance and ensuring economical and efficient use of public funds”.
