Bill on sharing profits out of research on anvil

Hannover, April 26 (UNI) Announcing a slew of major initiatives to boost scientific research and development in the country, Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal said the government would introduce a Bill in Parliament which will enable universities and researchers to share profits from their innovations and patents.

ђ We will introduce this Bill in the next session of ParliamentҒ, Mr Sibal told Indian journalists covering the Hannover Fair.

Setting up of the Indian Institute of Intellectual Property Management, India-Germany Research and Technology Centre Private-Public-Partnership based Solar Research Centre and initiating regulators in the areas of the Health sector are some of the major initiatives underway in the Ministry of Science and Technology.

Mr Sibal said the Mashellkar Committee report on setting up a regulator in the health sector has been accepted by the Government.

Similarly a regulator in the agriculture sector has also been in the pipeline.

Both the India-Germany Research and Development Centre as also the Solar Research Project would be based on the PPP model.

The board-driven projects would be run like independent research companies not only exploiting their own research but also leveraging the research capabilities of the institutes of excellence like IITs and universities.

Referring to the India-Germany and India-EU cooperation in science, Mr Sibal said that after Germany assumes the Presidency of the European Union, India would host a meeting of the EU Science Ministers in the second half of 2007.

The project on the India-German Research Centre will also take off next year.

Mr Sibal also said, the Ministry is now integrating with a host of other ministries like Agriculture, Defence, Health and Power so that the scientific projects in all these areas would be integrated.

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