COVID-19 impact: NITI Aayog suggests short-duration R&D projects for quick results; says self-reliance should be rural development model

With the COVID-19 cases in the country continue to rise and the subsequent lockdowns impact the economy, NITI Aayog suggested various development plans that will help the country come out the current crisis in a much faster manner. The plans include a proposal to focus on short-term projects that will fetch quick results and based on collaborative research and development. NITI Aayog member  VK Saraswat said that the policy think tank might soon come out with a proposal to transform research and development (R&D) in the country to focus on short-duration projects to address immediate challenges and give quick results, reported PTI. Saraswat, who is the former Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) chief, said consultations are on with scientists and scientific institutions in this regard. “We are basically now looking for how to transform the R & D to meet the challenges. We are coming out with some suggestions that, for example, time has come that we will have to take on short-duration projects on mission mode and deliver in shortest possible time,” Saraswat told PTI. [caption id=“attachment_6769121” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. PTI[/caption] “This is the kind of strategy we have to evolve for research and development, we can’t take long duration projects which are going to extend over a period of 4-5 years and give results. No,” the former Scientific Adviser to defence minister said. The need of the hour was to solve the immediate problems and R&D should concentrate on short-duration, quick results projects, and deliver to industries for productionisation, he added. Saraswat said R & D should be all ‘‘pervasive’’. “It has to be in private institutions, it has to be in public institutions, public-private partnership mode, and collaborative. Boundary between private, public, national laboratories, academic institutions should completely become impervious. There should be full-flow and collaboration,” he said. “We should not work in silos, we should work together, Saraswat said, adding, in the last one-and-half months it has been amply demonstrated that institutions, labs and academia have worked together and come up with solutions in a fast mode to meet the challenges posed by COVID-19.” Meanwhile, NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar suggested a seven-point development model for India laying stress on the need to make development a public movement on the lines of the freedom movement. He also said that there is a need to recast the rural development method and it should be self-reliance model. During the Facebook Live Dialogue organised by the RSS-affiliated organisation Bharatiya Shikshan Mandal on Sunday, Kumar stressed the need to make the indigenous language a contact language instead of English, reported IANS. Kumar said: “Today, most of the people put the responsibility of development on government agencies… this approach is wrong. We all should move beyond selfishness and do something for the nation. Every citizen should play proper role for the development.” Click here to follow LIVE updates on coronavirus outbreak The NITI Aayog Vice Chairman’s seven-point development model for the development of India include replacing English with the indigenous language as a contact language, governance with accountability and transparency, development approach, giving importance to the private sector, focusing on the employment scenario, making farming profitable and reducing the burden on farmers, linking urbanisation with the development of villages, and reconciliation with nature in place of victory over nature. Kumar said that in the changing times we need to amend the village development model of Mahatma Gandhi. “The world is changing very fast. Technology and consumer needs are also changing. Therefore, it is not possible for any village or any country to meet all its needs. In the changing scenario, a village or country is not able to There is a need to produce and export more than the purchases or imports for consumption. Therefore, self reliance should be the model of India’’s rural development,” he added. –With inputs from agencies