NEW DELHI: President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam on Monday gave away awards to 70 grass roots innovators selected from different parts of the country by the National Innovation Foundation under the Ministry of Science and Technology.

Addressing the audience on the occasion, he called for a national mission to nurture the innovations through technological support, funding, identification of market, and entrepreneurship to produce in a competitive basis to serve both the national and international market.

Noting that during the last seven years, the NIF had identified 65,000 innovative practices, which led to 102 patents, including 20 international ones, he said the time was ripe to ensure that the benefits of the innovations reached the community.

The innovators particularly needed support from local engineering institutions in the form of technologies to fine-tune the innovations, and funds from banks and venture capital institutions to convert them into commercially viable products.

There was a need to organise exhibitions not only to publicise the innovations but also get feedback from the user agencies to add more value to products.

The Ministry of Science and Technology could set up a specialised organisation to coordinate these efforts and seek the assistance of agencies such as Entrepreneurial Management Processes International and the Engineering Export Promotion Council.

He said an exhibition of innovative products developed under the Programme for Urban-like infrastructure in Rural Areas (PURA) in Vallam in Periyar district of Tamil Nadu with the support of Japanese Economic and Trade Related Organisation and with technical guidance from a nearby engineering institution — Periyar Maniammai College of Engineering for Women — was being organised here later this month and in Japan in June.

Mr. Kalam called for measures to make knowledge-based creative employment a part of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme. Grass-roots innovators could be mobilised to create a knowledge map of the best practices in villages.

"I am sure each of the 6,00,000 villages in the country will have a number of good practices in agriculture, fishing, forestry, horticulture, medicinal plants, traditional knowledge in medicine and handicrafts, textiles, rearing of silk worm and many other areas depending upon the bio-diversity and core competence of the particular region. "

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