Union Minister for Science and Technology Harsh Vardhan has urged research institutes to develop cost effective and easily implementable technologies to solve people’s problems.

The government depends a lot on research institutes of repute to diagnose various issues that needs to be taken care of, he said on a visit to CSIR-Structural Engineering Research Centre, Chennai, one of the national laboratories under the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced an ambitious Make in India programme in which thousands of components are required. “We have to develop technology that is easily transferable and easily available to people. We have to make it people-friendly,” he said. It is time to start re-orienting research to find out innovative solutions to problems of the country.

Some of the projects are lingering for decades because ‘we may not have the fast track technology or no mechanism to implement,’ he said.

Glorious past

“We have a glorious past to inspire us. Structures built in this country thousands of years ago are still testimony to the finest brains we have had in the field of structural engineering. We have to take inspiration from the past and look at the present day’s work to make our future far brighter,” he said.

“If we do not connect science with people, it is of no use. Thousands of papers are prepared by various research institutes. However, often there is no breaking news in the research,” he said. The pace of projects should be speeded up. For instance, he was told that in Brazil, technology is being used to construct houses for the poor in three days. “We have to start thinking a little out of the box,” he said.

In the morning, Vardhan visited the Central Leather Research Institute.

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