PM stresses more spending on science & Tech

India needs to scale up its spending on Science and Technology from the current level of expenditure in this field which stands a one per cent of the GDP, said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

“The expenditure on Science and Technology is one per cent of the GDP and this is about half of the level of the developed countries. The Centre is committed to increase the funding for research and development and for the last few years, we have been allocating larger budgets in this area”, he stated.

Singh also called for greater efforts from the private sector in the arena of research and development (R&D).

“I expect the private sector to do more for R&D. We also need more public private partnership in R&D in all the areas of Science and technology”, Singh asserted.

The Prime Minister today laid the foundation stone of the new campus of the National Institute for Science Education and Research (NISER-Bhubaneswar) at Jatani, about 20 km from the city.

“It is our expectation that NISER-Bhubaneswar will produce scientifically trained manpower of a very high quality which could directly find placement across the country. There will be greater emphasis on branches of science relevant to the Department of Atomic Energy which also cater to better exploitation and utilization of Orissa's natural resources”, Singh said after the foundation stone laying ceremony.

M C Bhandare, the Orissa governor; state chief minister Naveen Patnaik; Anil Kakodkar, chairman, NISER and Srikumar Banerjee, secretary, department of atomic energy, Government of India were also present on the occasion.

NISER-Bhubaneswar is expected to be fully operational by the end of 2013. The institute is being developed on 300 acres of land at Jatni and once the institute is fully operational, it would have a total student strength of about 2,000.

The new campus of NISER would have a pool of 200 faculty members and 500 technical and non-technical staff. The total cost of setting up the new campus is Rs 770 crore. Construction work on the new campus is expected to commence by February 2010. NISER-Bhubaneswar would be a Centre of Excellence for teaching and research in four basic areas of science.

Apart from separate academic blocks for different areas of science education and research, the NISER-Bhubaneswar campus will have planned academic and residential townships with all modern amenities and recreational facilities.