Develop low-cost decentralised solutions for the poor:Mashelkar

New Delhi, Oct 12 (UNI) India needs low-cost decentralised solutions to deliver quality performance to the poor at an affordable price, according to Director-General of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) R A Mashelkar, who will take over as President of the Global Research Alliance from next year.

Innovation is the key to developing and providing such solutions, he said adding, ''Innovation means doing different things and doing them differently.'' It spans the gamut of technological, social and policy challenges. It is possible to have innovation-led inclusion.

Whether it's cataract operations, education, income generation or the development of new drugs, India has shown that quality is not proportional to cost, he said. Cataract operations performed at the Aravind Eye Institute have a higher success rate than those done at the Royal College of Opthamology, UK, and cost a fraction of the amount.

Similarly, the cost of development of new drugs in India is a small fraction of what it is abroad. For example, development of a new drug for psoriasis costs just 5 million dollars in India, compared to 700 million dollars in the US and has taken three years against 10 in the US.

''India needs alternative paths for drug development, provided by the integration of traditional systems of medicine with allopathy.'' One of the greatest challenges facing India is illiteracy. Dr Mashelkar said it takes 200 hours of instruction and several thousands of rupees to make a person literate using conventional methods of instruction.

Based on the cognition theory that emphasises learning words, not alphabets, it is possible to make a person literate in eight weeks at a cost of Rs 100. This can make a huge difference in India in a short span of just five years if it is implemented in mission mode in all villages of India, he added.

Sometimes, the development of high quality products needs high technology, Dr Mashelkar said adding that the challenge is to get the best minds to work on the problems of the poor.

Dr Mashelkar will work on developing a global knowledge pool for the global good through global funding from next year that will bring together the best scientific brains in eight countries.

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