Stop mushrooming of ill-equipped BT institutions: Expert

Bangalore, Sep 11 (UNI) Renowned agriculture scientist Dr S Shatharam today said the Union Governemt should swiftly act to stop the mushrooming of ill-equipped institutions teaching Bio Technology as quality of education in the highly sophisticated field.

Speaking at a colloquium on 'March of Agricultural BT in India' organised by Foundation for Biotechnology Awareness and Education (FBAE), he said, there was an urgent need to shut down several such institutions, mainly in the private sector as they lacked proper laboratory infrastructure and quality teaching staff.

''There are over 1000 institutions teaching BT in the country, and 45 in Bangalore city alone, which has proved to be a rapidly developing field that offers great prospects for the youth as well as the agriculture sector. Unfortunately, many such institutions are not providing provide quality education. Technology cannot be promoted without making heavy investment in infrastructure,'' he noted.

He said research was vital for any technology to progress and active research was important for BT.

''We should motivate students to take up research but in several institutions, the teaching faculty has no idea about research. They keep doing routine teaching year after year. This can harm the quality of BT education,'' the expert said.

Dr Shantharam, who is also FBAE president said the foundation, comprising academic experts in the field had recommended to the Union government to constitute a BT Accreditation Council in line with AICTE, but nothing had been done so far.

He called for creating a better awareness on bio-technology among the farmers and the public as there was a misconception about the usefulness of the technology.

''The people are misinformed about the advantages of the BT. The academic and the students should remove such misunderstanding,'' he said.

Vice-Chancellor of city-based University of Agricultural Sciences, P G Chengappa, highlighted the usefulness of BT, saying that traditional methods of agriculture had reached its saturation level in India, and BT was the answer to achieve higher yields.

UNI