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The government today denied the presence of any undue beauracratic control over the Research and Development ecosystem of India.
In reply to a question in the Lok Sabha, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Science & Technology; Minister of State (Independent Charge) Earth Sciences; MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh said that all the scientific departments are functioning with an integrated approach in synchronization with each other and with other departments of the Government of India.
Dr Jitendra Singh informed that the Government has taken some major initiatives to bring transformative changes in the processing of the research proposals by employing digital technologies that involve, online receipt and online processing of the proposals for review and approvals and digital transfer of the research grants which has improved the transparency in implementation and also reduced the average time of processing from earlier nine months to approximately four and half months. The Government has also introduced an effective grievance redressal mechanism to address the concerns of the citizens including that of the scientific community. Further, as part of the formulation of the new Science, Technology and Innovation Policy, several recommendations have been included in the draft towards the ‘Ease of doing research in the country.
The Minister also stated that the Government has studied the scientific administration and governance structure in leading innovation-backed countries in the world. Most of the S&T innovation-led economies in the world have been putting efforts towards improving their ‘ease of doing research in line with the concept of ‘ease of doing business. There are a few global rankings such as Global Innovation Index, Global Competitiveness Index, etc which are reporting on this aspect. These comparative analyses bring out key attributes associated with S&T governance and administration. India has made considerable progress in terms of its ranking in most of the global indices in recent years.
