The budgets for space missions are not very high and scientists from other branches must not make a hue and cry out of it, Chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) AS Kiran Kumar has said.
Kumar rubbished the allegations made by senior scientist and Bharat Ratna awardee CNR Rao that the government is biased towards funding of space and nuclear sciences and ignores basic sciences.
“It would be wrong to say that government funding for developing space technology is higher. Even today, the yearly budget allotted is around Rs 4,000 crore, which is not a substantial amount, considering the number and scale of missions undertaken,” Kiran Kumar told Sakal Times.
Rao, who was in Pune for the annual meeting of the Indian Academy of Sciences earlier this month, had said the government must urgently look into funding researchers studying basic sciences.
“The future of these researchers will be bleak unless there is government backing. They will have to stop their research as they will be worrying if their project will survive the following year or not,” Rao had said during the meeting.
At present, about 0.8 - 0.9 per cent of the GDP is alloted for scientific research. Further, nearly 25 - 30 per cent budget was slashed by the NDA government, leaving many projects in the lurch.
However, the ISRO chief claimed that the space agency was making bigger contributions than other scientific institutions.
“Our work is open for public review and there has been bigger contributions for society as a whole,” added Kiran Kumar.
Director General of Science and Technology Park, Rajendra Jagdale, however, said that he was against complete dependency on the Centre for funding and some onus of supporting science research also lies with the State government.
“It is not necessary that one must completely depend upon the Centre for funds for doing research. Even state governments must chip in and share the financial burden,” Jagdale said.
He also voiced his concerns about the gap between the Central government’s vision towards making the country an innovation hub and the financial allocation. He lamented that the government was indulging more in rhetorics and less action was visible.
“Make in India, NITI Ayog and several other rhetoric announcements made by Modi have not reflected in the process of boosting education and research in the country,” he said.
Source : Sakal Times , 18th Nov 2015
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