India to invest Rs 20,000 crore, turn brain drain to gain
The industry, students and teaching faculty would be involved in this programme.
Hyderabad: The Centre will be spending about Rs 20,000 crore in the next three to five years to stop brain drain and ensure brain gain, Union HRD minister Prakash Javadekar said on Saturday. Of this, the Centre will contribute Rs 2,000 crore while the remaining amount will be pooled from different sources, including the industry, for this challenging initiative, the Union minister said.
Mr Javadekar explained how the country had lost out on innovation and research over the last several decades with the best brains going overseas for higher studies and doing research there to get patents ultimately.“India is left to import products made out of them,” he rued, while speaking at the launch of Silver Jubilee celebrations of Pragna Bharati here on Saturday.
“To stop this trend, we are coming out with GRIN (Global Research Innovation Network) under which 500 best research scholars would be identified. They would be provided with best of research facilities, paid a monthly stipend of Rs 75,000 for five years. The industry, students and teaching faculty would be involved in this programme. If some of these students come out with world’s best innovations for which we could file patents right here, than our objective is served,” he said.
Mr Javadekar explained how the present government has accorded top priority to innovation by mentioning the various activities involving engineering students from IITs and thousands of engineering colleges from all over the country.
Nirmala Sitharaman, Union minister of state for commerce and industry hailed Pragna Bharati for its efforts in the last 25 years to share information on several issues with clarity, bring facts before the public through its debates and discussions.
Union minister Bandaru Dattatreya said that Pragna Bharathi held seminars on many national issues and offered valuable tips to successive governments.
V-Cs of Osmania, Andhra and Rayalaseema universities were present.