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Friday, Mar 25, 2005

Opinion

Opinion - Leader Page Articles

Budgeting for science

By N. Gopal Raj

The Government's move to increase funding for science has to be accompanied by an end to red tape.

IN HIS budget speech on February 28, the Union Finance Minister, P. Chidambaram, spoke of the Government's desire to make the Indian Institute of Science a "world class university" in a few years, and announced a grant of Rs.100 crore to the Institute for that purpose. But the bonanza for science went beyond that one grant, which the Institute's Director described as a "pleasant surprise."

Between the 2000-2001 financial year and last year (2004-2005), the Union Government's total budgetary allocations for the four science departments of Science & Technology, Scientific and Industrial Research, Biotechnology, and Ocean Development grew at 11 per cent a year. But in this year's Union budget, the allocation for the four departments has jumped by 28 per cent compared with last year, an increase of over Rs.800 crore. The four departments' annual plan spending is set to shoot up by 40 per cent in this financial year.

The last time the science budget saw such a quantum jump was more than a decade ago, in 1993, says the Secretary to the Department for Science & Technology (DST), V.S. Ramamurthy. It was very significant that the growth in this year's plan allocations was greater for the science departments than for the `strategic sectors' of Atomic Energy and Space which have usually been favoured, points out Raghunath Mashelkar, Director-General of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research.

A "National Mission on Nano Science and Nano Technology" has been launched. The mission is expected to be funded to the tune of Rs.1,000 crore over five years, according to Dr. Ramamurthy. The DST has been spending about Rs.20 crore to Rs.30 crore annually for the past three years on fostering research in this "sunrise technology," he says adding it is now time to begin making "nano products."

Nanoscience and nanotechnology is the study and use of materials that are less than one-800th the width of a human hair. At these extraordinarily tiny sizes, materials behave very differently and it is envisaged that the use of nanomaterials will revolutionise many areas. A report published last year jointly by Britain's Royal Society and Royal Academy of Engineering noted, however, that the relatively small number of nanotechnologies currently being commercially used represented "evolutionary rather than revolutionary advances."

Some of the money allotted for the nanotechnology mission is likely, it is understood, to be used for establishing a synchrotron facility with the help of the Department of Atomic Energy. A synchrotron produces X-rays and other radiation that are suitable for determining the structure of materials and molecules. A synchrotron is a popular demand in this country and routinely required not only in nano materials but by other fields too, such as for studying biological molecules, points out C.N.R. Rao, a leading nanoscience researcher. The Department of Atomic Energy's project to set up an indigenous synchrotron at Indore has been taking much too long while even a small country like Singapore already possesses a synchrotron, he notes. It is necessary to talk to the Department of Atomic Energy so that researchers in this country too have access to a synchrotron, he adds.

Even more substantial increases in the Union Government's science spending may be coming, along with an entirely new mechanism for directing science funding. The newly established Science Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (SAC-PM), headed by Professor C.N.R. Rao, had a meeting recently with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The Prime Minister is reported to have agreed to the SAC-PM's recommendation that a National Science and Engineering Research Foundation (NSERF) be created along the lines of the National Science Foundation (NSF) of the United States. The SAC-PM has been asked to develop a proposal that could be presented to the Cabinet.

A concept paper that was produced for the SAC-PM noted that science funding in academic institutions and universities had not kept pace with the growing costs of basic research. The mechanism for funding and administering projects carried out by individual investigators had become too bureaucratic, and complex financial procedures were inhibiting efficient operation.

The NSERF is envisaged in the concept paper as an autonomous body whose mandate would be to raise scientific activity in the country to internationally competitive levels. The concept paper suggested that the Foundation be managed by a board headed by a scientist of repute with the Secretary to DST as the vice-chairman. The board would also have leaders of Indian science and representatives of science agencies and industry.

A number of government departments have extramural funding for sponsored research projects and some of it is available to individual scientists from any institution in the country. The extramural R&D projects approved by various agencies during 2001-2002 is put at Rs.445 crore. The biggest single source of extramural funding for individual scientists is the DST's Science & Engineering Research Council (SERC), which funds projects in all disciplines. The SERC has been allotted Rs.290 crore in the budget for the coming financial year.

The concept paper has suggested that the proposed NSERF receive Rs.1,000 crore annually from the Government and also be free to accept funding from industry and other sources. According to scientists who are on the SAC-PM, the other existing sources of science funding would remain untouched.

According to Prof. Rao, the idea for such a foundation was not new. Towards the end of the period of the Prime Ministership of Rajiv Gandhi, the Government had almost sanctioned the proposal when elections were called and the administration was changed. (It was during Rajiv Gandhi's term as Prime Minister that a SAC-PM was first set up, which was headed on that occasion too by Prof. Rao.) Later, when I.K. Gujral became Prime Minister, the Government took up the proposal but again there was a change of Government before it could be cleared and implemented, says Prof. Rao. According to Dr. Ramamurthy, the formation of such a Foundation had been part of the DST's proposals for the 10th Five Year Plan that began in 2002.

The funding for scientific research should not be left to Government Ministries where it will be only one of their many duties, says Prof. Rao. There should be one body overseeing the funding of scientific research, which could establish a funding policy and direct funding appropriately. The proposed Foundation should also carry out scientific audits and monitor the country's scientific output.

"Science [in India] needs a blood transfusion," says Dr. K. Vijayraghavan, director of the National Centre for the Biological Sciences, Bangalore, and a member of SAC-PM. Proactive measures are needed, taking a futuristic view of science. Universities, for instance, need injection of top-quality researchers, he says. Flexibility in procedures, which an autonomous Foundation can enjoy, is essential for rebuilding science departments in universities and other institutions, according to P. Balaram of the Indian Institute of Science, who too is a member of SAC-PM.

The bureaucracy associated with the present funding mechanisms is hurting Indian science, according to Prof. Rao. He envisages the proposed new Foundation as an organisation run by scientists who would come on deputation for a couple of years. But officials of the funding agencies say it is the bureaucracy at the recipient institutions (including the Indian Institute of Science) that is troubling scientists most.

This correspondent spoke to some scientists who have received government grants for their projects. According to one, the Departments of Biotechnology, Atomic Energy and Defence Research are quick to clear projects while SERC can take over two years to do so. Another said the bureaucracy of the Indian grant-giving systems was no greater than that associated with getting grants from the Wellcome Trust in Britain. In a university, grants given by a funding agency could be diverted to other purposes, such as for paying salaries, said a third. All of them agreed that the bureaucracy in their institutions made a big difference, an efficient administration lightening the burden of the scientists and the cumbersome one becoming yet another hurdle.

Two years ago, the Scientific Advisory Committee to the Cabinet (SAC-C), which remains in place even after the creation of the SAC-PM, commissioned a report on `Organisational and Administrative Changes for Reducing Bureaucratisation in S&T.' The sub-committee of the SAC-C that prepared the report recommended 11 changes. It is believed that the Ministry of Finance has accepted only one of those recommendations.

The process of reviewing project proposals, which was carried out by scientists themselves, was, unfortunately, not immune to cronyism, says Y.S. Rajan, former scientific secretary of the Indian Space Research Organisation who later spent many years at DST. It will be important for the proposed Foundation to tackle this problem, according to him. If the new Foundation is to be truly autonomous, great care will have to be taken in drafting its procedures to make sure that power is decentralised and individual scientists working in research and academic institutions actually get the freedom they need, points out Mr. Rajan, who established the Technology Information, Forecasting and Assessment Council (TIFAC) as an autonomous body under DST and was its executive director for 14 years.

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