Prime Minister Narendra Modi will chair a meeting of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) Society here on Saturday.
During a press conference here, Science and Technology Minister Jitendra Singh said this is the third year of the CSIR Society and the meeting is of special significance as it marks 80 years of the establishment of the council.
About the agenda of the meeting, Singh said a presentation about the various activities of the CSIR would be made before the Prime Minister and his suggestions would be sought on the way forward.
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, 13 union secretaries, including all secretaries of science-based ministries, would participate in the meeting.
The CMDs of four public sector undertakings -- NTPC, BHEL, GAIL and HAL -- three industry leaders and 12 academia and scientific community members would also attend the meeting.
CSIR Director General N Kalaiselvi highlighted the recent achievements and focus areas of the CSIR, including providing smart agriculture information for farmers and technical solution to industries and extending support to MSMEs and start-ups.
"Now we are going to focus on two areas, we will be coming up with a call for proposals where we will be addressing industry-based problems and societal issues, she said.
"Hereafter, every project will be conceived in the form of a technology. We will be roping in one or more industries from day one so that when the technology matures, the industry becomes our launch vehicle to implement it for societal application," she added.
Talking about how technology is used to benefit, Mr. Singh said a pilot project was conducted in Punjab, Haryana, and Gujarat to use helicopter technology to ascertain the presence of groundwater at different points.
The project was conducted in collaboration with the Ministry of Jal Shakti.
Singh said the CSIR's research efforts are now mainly focussed on green energy technologies, science and innovation interventions to generate employment and raise income levels in rural India.
He said strengthening self-reliance across industrial sectors, facilitating infrastructure developments, and developing critical S&T human resources are also the mandate of CSIR, and the R&D conglomerate is adopting Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning platforms for its scientific pursuits.
