Goa to promote investment in R&D in 'frontier fields'

Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant said on Thursday that his government planned to promote private investment in R&D units in "frontier fields" such as biotechnology and nanotechnology.

In the "performance budget" 2019-2020 of Department of Science and Technology tabled in the Legislative Assembly, Sawant also said that the state's Remote Sensing Centre, the nodal agency for satellite and GIS mapping, will be revived.

The performance budget document gives a summary of work done by a department in the previous fiscal and its plans for the current fiscal.

Private investment in Research and Development units in "frontier fields" such as biotechnology, IT, pharmaceuticals, medical sciences, nutrition, nanotechnology will be boosted, which can directly help industries and entrepreneurship, it said.

The state government also plans to revive the Remote Sensing Centre under the Science and Technology Department, it said.

The centre is the nodal agency for carrying out satellite surveys and GIS (geographical information system) mapping.

"The Centre will be revived and will be equipped with requisite hardware, equipment to enable them to undertake collaborative training programme with Hyderabad-based National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) and other agencies," it added.

The state budget, presented earlier this month, has earmarked Rs 90 lakh for reviving the centre.

It will undertake projects for mitigating specific environmental problems, recommend cropping or plantation patterns in newly-irrigated areas, advise on afforestation of wastelands, creation of 'zoning Atlas' for industries, and estimation of agricultural production and precipitation levels.