Our govt is forward-looking, not stuck in ancient wisdom: Vardhan
New Delhi: Distancing himself from controversial statements made by his party colleagues, including Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb, Union Minister for Science & Technology Harsh Vardhan on Thursday said that his government is forward-looking and not stuck in ancient wisdom.
Highlighting the achievements of his ministry in the last four years, Vardhan said, "Our science is now working to solve important challenges in the areas of water, energy, health, environment, climate, agriculture, food. At the same time, India is getting future-ready in launching ambitious missions in the cyber-physical system, artificial intelligence, supercomputing, deep-ocean, biopharmaceuticals, and others, which will make us globally competitive in a rapidly changing world order."
In reply to a question on shrinking of budgetary allocations, the minister said, "The investment in science, technology and related areas has gone up during the last four years starting 2014-15 to 2018-19, as against five years of the ousted UPA government i.e, 2009-10 to 2013-14."
"The budget allocation to Department of Science & Technology was Rs 19,764 crore, which is a whopping 90 per cent increase. Similarly, there was an increase of 65 per cent for the Department of Biotechnology; almost 43 per cent increase for CSIR and 26 per cent increase for
Ministry of Earth Sciences," Vardhan said.
In his presentation, CSIR DG Girish Sahni said, "The anti-diabetes drug BGR-34, which is developed by two laboratories of CSIR, has been proving an extremely successful herbal medicine. The BGR-34 was launched in the market during 2015-16 and in just a few years it has been placed at the top 14th position of 6,367 medicines launched in the market during the last two years."
It's the outcome of the efficacy of the anti-diabetic ayurvedic drug BGR-34 that it has been in high demand as the drug is effective in reducing
the amount of sugar in the blood.
Hailing his ministry for improvement in weather predictions, Vardhan said, "The accuracy level of the IMD has improved drastically over the period of time. We have been able to predict weather forecast with accuracy. The monsoon predictions by IMD have improved a lot."
In reply to a question on alerts about dust and thunderstorms, Earth Sciences Secretary M Rajeevan said, "We predicted about the extreme weather event three days before (it hit). We admit that there is an issue in reaching out to people and there is a need to improve our dissemination strategy."
