NEW DELHI : IndiaÂs two most prestigious institutions, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and CSIR joined hands to form a ÂMake in India Technology Development and Deployment VentureÂ. 

The MoU was exchanged in the presence of Dr. Harsh Vardhan, Union Minister for Science & Technology and vice-president CSIR, Dr. Girish Sahni, Director General, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and Mr. Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

Dr. Harsh Vardhan, S&T Minister expressed immense happiness on CSIR and CII joining hands. He said that CSIR and industry should have synergistic partnership for developing and deploying technologies addressed at unmet needs within a defined time frame. CSIR has a large number of technologies which could be commercialised in partnership with industry. However, CSIR does not have the necessary wherewithal for deployment of these technologies. He emphasized that there should be joint national level programmes in CSIR-Industry partnership mode addressing national priorities.

Dr. Girish Sahni, DG, CSIR expressing joy of joining hands with CII, explained the mechanism that CSIR is putting in place to leverage its partnership with industry. For each R&D / Commercialization project, CSIR, through its chain of R&D labs will provide scientific and technological support in the form of scientific infrastructure and high quality manpower resources in the form of scientists & technical persons whereas the industry will identify the technology need and will invest in the projects. Respective line ministries will be explored to co-invest in these projects to bear the risk.

The CSIR Innovation Fund which would be made operational soon will help handhold the start-ups and would also support the partnership necessary with the industry to take the developments forward in fast track mode once proof of concept is established. He further said that CSIR is also setting up Incubation Centres in CSIR laboratories which would provide the necessary facilities for industry to incubate and work with CSIR laboratories in real time and space.

Indian industryÂs R&D spend has been around 0.3% of GDP as against global average of 1.5% of GDP. CII has been working to stimulate industryÂs investment through multiple ways while CSIR has been striving to bring technologies in the forefront through industrial research. CII is also instrumental in attracting industryÂs R&D investment through its unique PPP Joint Venture Company, Global Innovation & Technology Alliance (GITA) where 50:50: investment model has been showing success with DST, MeitY, DHI as the partners. 

This joint initiative ÂMake in India Technology Venture will focus on priority sectors aligning to IndiaÂs key aspirations under Make in India, Digital India, Start-up India, Skill India, Clean India etc. It will lead to development and deployment of critical platform technologies with many product technologies resulting into IndiaÂs technology value addition in manufacturing which will contribute significantly to growth of GDP and high-tech exports. The scope would expand to synergise the efforts with line ministries. The proposal is to have consortium of industries with CSIR through its constituent laboratory (s) working on a single development project with line ministries and industries sharing the risk of financial investment. 

A high-level Apex body named ÂTechnology Development & Deployment Advisory Council (TDDAC) will also be formed under this MoU. It will provide policy directions and monitor the activities of the program, and the members of the TDDAC will be invited from participating line ministries, experts from academic and R&D institutions, industry associations, participating PE/VC companies.

As a next step, CII and CSIR and respective line ministries will constitute an Apex Body and sectoral project management cells to finalise the priority technology areas and models of partnerships for each case of technology development.