The Union Minister of State for Science & Technology and Earth Sciences Y S Chowdary urged directors of the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) to come up with at least 12 cutting edge technologies which are to be commercialised every year.

He was addressing the Director's Conference of CSIR, being held at CSIR-IIP, Dehradun on the second day. He also emphasised the need for CSIR labs to be self-financing through generating funds by offering technology to Industry.

The minister said as of now there is a perception that our scientific research is not being guided by national priorities. Chowdary called upon all CSIR labs to map their resources, list out bottlenecks and anomalies to bring about a positive change and come up with a vision document for a guided action now.

The Director-General, CSIR Dr. M.O.Garg and all the Directors of CSIR Institutions across the country attended the two day meeting.

Each of the laboratory heads made a presentation about his or her respective lab achievements in transferring products and processes developed by him or her to industry.

They also disclosed the patents awarded, the skill development programmes carried out, socio-economic interventions made, villages adopted and upgraded and contributions to Swachh Bharat and other Govt. programmes. The success in realising Royalties and License Fees receipts were also shared with projections made for the next year.

The "Make in India" and "Innovate in India" visions of the Prime Minister came up for extraordinary focus at the two-day meeting and saw all CSIR heads accept the challenge to provide the Science & Technology research findings as backbone to a great and new manufacturing economy.

Dr Harsh Vardhan said, "I have full confidence in our scientists. With proper encouragement and focused approach, I am sure India will achieve the status of world's greatest scientific powerhouse.

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