The Atal Community Innovation Centre should focus on using local resources, such as non-fossilised bio-mass, to meet the growing energy demand of the country, said Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas, and Steel, Dharmendra Pradhan.

Speaking at the launch of the NITI Aayog’s AIM-Atal Community Innovation Centre, Pradhan said, “Today, we are the third largest consumer and in the coming years, before 2040, in less than 20 years, we will be the No. 1 energy consumer of the world. The sources of energy should evolve to meet this demand with a focus on decarbonising the economy.”

Pradhan also said that PSUs in the oil and gas, and steel sector would be spending a portion of their CSR contributions to support the initiatives of the Atal Community Innovation Centre.

Rajiv Kumar, Vice-Chairman at NITI Aayog, said, “There is no infrastructure for innovation in 484 backward, tribal and interior districts of our country despite all our efforts. The community centres being set up today are in these districts because the Atal Innovation Centres are in other districts of the country….We are trying to change the innovation environment in the country and reduce the distance between lab and land.”

The NITI Aayog’s Atal Community Innovation Centre’s (ACIC) will provide a platform in many of the rural, tribal areas and Tier-II and -III cities and unserved regions to have access to latest technologies for innovation and to ideate and create prototypes for innovation. These centres can then become incubatees for other innovators, a NITI Aayog presentation said.

Collaborative partnerships

The ACIC will focus on collaborative public-private partnerships to co-invest and operationalise the ACIC. There will be advanced tinkering facilities for capacity and skill building and innovative prototype development in local community of schools and colleges including surrounding ITIs, technical diploma and colleges.

There will be focus on addressing local community challenges. This will be a design-led innovative thinking project, the presentation added.

Also speaking at the event, Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog, said, “This is about community participation in innovation. Our challenge is to provide solutions to the problem of India, how do we reduce pollution, how do we provide fertilisers, depending on soil condition to our farmers. How do we provide medicines at the right price points which we have done across the world. All these are challenges and if India is able to find solutions that can be adopted by the world then India will move from poverty to a middle income nation within the next two decades.”

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