Union minister for science and technology, environment, forest and climate change and earth sciences Harsh Vardhan on Thursday called upon scientists across the country to come up with new technologies in consonance with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of a ‘New India.’
“There should be synergy among scientific institutions to develop newer technologies to deliver a new India envisioned by Prime Minister Narendra Modi,” Vardhan said while addressing scientists at the Hyderabad-based National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI) under CSIR.
The minister underlined the need for taking advantage of India’s demographic strength. “We have the demographic advantage now, and we should exploit it,” he said.
Vardhan appealed to the scientific community to focus their attention to remote and backward areas such as North Eastern parts of the country to find solutions to their various problems. In this context he suggested scientists develop solutions to problems in 115 backward districts of the country with growth potential. Vardhan said scientists and scientific laboratories can contribute to the solution of several developmental issues in these districts.
He said it is time scientists gave equal importance to ‘solution science’ as ‘fundamental science’, a ministry note quoting the minister said. Vardhan mentioned the contribution made by National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI) towards finding solutions to various problems.
NGRI provided technical assistance for Heliborne Survey to the Central Ground Water Board for the first time in 2013, to carry out aquifer mapping, or mapping the water pools beneath ground in Rajasthan.NGRI’s expertise in Heliborne surveys to map mineral and ground water could be utilised to explore natural resources in these 115 districts, the minister added.