Dr Jitendra convenes joint meeting of all Science Ministries, Departments

Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh chairing a joint meeting of all the Science Ministries and Departments at Prithvi Bhawan, New Delhi on Monday.
Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh chairing a joint meeting of all the Science Ministries and Departments at Prithvi Bhawan, New Delhi on Monday.

Excelsior Correspondent
NEW DELHI, Mar 28 : Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Science & Technology; Minister of State (Independent Charge) Earth Sciences; MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh today convened a joint meeting of all the Science Ministries and Departments in the Government sector.
During the meeting, the Union Minister conducted a thorough review of draft agenda of the National Science Conclave, draft of Science, Technology and Innovation Policy (STIP) along with progress made on several other issues which were discussed in the last meeting held on 16th February, 2022. He gave several suggestions and directions to various departments while reviewing the Action Taken Report (ATR) on 16 actions identified during the last meeting.
While reviewing the draft of the proposed National Science Conclave, Dr. Jitendra Singh suggested that thematic and state-specific discussions could be included in the Conclave involving States, industry representatives and other stakeholders. He opined that integration of various departments and avoiding overlapping activities will certainly result in better output of every department.
Dr Jitendra Singh also gave directions on the issue of delayed disbursement of Fellowship amounts to scholars and researchers.. The Union Minister directed the officials of all attending departments to hunt and search for StartUps rather than waiting for StartUups to reach out to them. He said that the departments should be able to identify and locate the eligible Start-ups based on certain guidelines in order to support them.
Under the draft of STIP, issues like, inviting public suggestions for adding words related to Start-up and innovation, adopting ways to put India among top 5 in terms of quality of research outcome by year 2030, targeting 30% participation of women in science by year 2030, taking India within top 3 global leaders in STI by year 2030 and how can India achieve Aatmanirbharta in technology by year 2030, were thoroughly deliberated upon.
The meeting was attended by Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India Dr Vijay Raghavan, Secretary Space Somanath, Secretary Earth Sciences Dr Ravichandran, Secretary, Biotechnology Dr Rajesh Gokhale, Secretary CSIR Dr Shekhar Mande, Secretary Technology Development Board Pathak as well as representatives and senior officials of other science departments.