Council on anvil to lessen industrial pollution

NEW DELHI: The department of biotechnology (DBT) is planning to constitute a council to facilitate academia-industry interface so that technologies developed for mitigation of environmentally unfriendly industrial practices are adopted by the industry.
The proposal for the Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC) has been prepared and the department hopes the Cabinet note will be tabled in the next two-three months.
"There is a lot of resistance from the industry in adopting technologies because there is the principle of polluter pays and also a stigma associated with being a polluting industry that nobody wants to risk. This council will foster public-private partnerships between the biotech industry, specially the small and medium enterprises and scientists," explained a senior scientist in the department.
BIRAC will not only improve coordination between the developers of technology and their propscetive users, but also give small loans especially to small industries to incentivise adoption of environemnt-friendly technologies.
"In the present structure of DBT, the focus is on managing science and research...such an innovation support organisation is critical for the growth of Biotech sector as a whole," says the internal note prepared by the department.
Addressing an international conference on technolgies for biological ways of mitigating chemical hazards in Delhi University on Wednesday, science and technology minister Pawan Kumar Bansal had also talked about how industries are reluctant to adopt proven technologies for fear of being branded and also how there is very little awareness among industries on this.
"The only example of industry sucessfully adopting a technological innovation is of the oil zapper that was developed by Tata Energy Research Institute for the oil industry to clean up areas around oil fields. The bacteria ended up boosting production so now all oil companies use it," said a DBT official.
BIRAC was first envisaged by the government in 2007 while announcing its National Biotechnology Development Strategy. The committee of secretaries while approving the strategy also gave an in-principle approval for setting up of BIRAC. The first phase of BIRAC is already being run as a project (BIRAP) since November 2008 under the chairmanship of DBT secretarywith senior members of the industry, academia and various companies.
"It has been very successful and we are now ready to take it to the next level -- that of the full-fledged council," the scientist said.