The recently set up National Innovation Council got off to a flying start on Thursday with its members unanimously deciding to work for establishing a Rs. 5,000 crore fund to promote innovations.
Adviser to the Prime Minister on Public Information Infrastructure and Innovation and panel chairman Sam Pitroda said the endeavour was to establish the fund within the next six months.
To begin with, the fund would be set up with a corpus of Rs. 1,000 crore, with the government putting in seed money of about 20 per cent. The balance amount would be raised from industry and other stakeholders.
“If you want, you will also be able to contribute,” he said when asked by a reporter as to who all could contribute to the fund.
The fund, he said, would be used to finance a whole range of research activities, with focus on issues that affected the people “at the bottom of the pyramid”.
The aim of the Council was to provide for a more inclusive and innovative India. “The rich can find the resources needed for solving their problems. It is the poor who need support. The council would focus on them”.
The two-hour meeting also discussed the possibility of producing television reality shows with innovation as the main theme and measures needed to promote research at universities and industry clusters, and to bring in innovations in the delivery of public services.
Mr. Pitroda launched a website [www.innovationcouncil.gov.in] of the council.
The 17-member panel includes Planning Commission members K. Kasturirangan and Arun Maira; the former Director-General of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), R.A. Mashelkar; the former President of the National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom), Kiran Karnik; Executive Director of Tata Sons R. Gopalakrishnan; and Biocon Chairperson Kiran Mazumdar Shah.
CSIR Director-General Samir Brahmachari, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) Director-General Chandrajit Banerjee, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) Secretary-General Amit Mitra, IIT-Kanpur Director Sanjay Dhande, are also members.
Further, the council has Devi Prasad Shetty of Narayana Hrudalaya, film director Shekhar Kapur, chairman of C.A. Technologies Saurabh Srivastava, Anil K. Gupta of the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad, and Sujatha Ramadorai of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, as members. R. Gopalakrishnan, Additional Secretary in the Prime Minister's office, is the Member-Secretary.
