New Delhi, Aug 22 (UNI) MoS for Science and Technology Dr Jitendra Singh on Tuesday said India is set to achieve $150 billion Bio-Economy by 2025, which stood at over $100 billion in 2022.
The Minister was speaking while overseeing the signing up of the ‘Implementation Arrangement’ between the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and the United States-National Science Foundation (US-NSF) here.
This was a follow-up of the discussion meeting held between Dr Rajesh S Gokhale. Secretary, DBT and Dr Sethuraman Panchanathan, Director, NSF in June, 2023 to discuss opportunities for developing ‘Strategic Partnership’ between DBT and US-NSF.
Singh recalled that during the recent visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the US in June, the leaderships of the both the countries called on their administrations to extend the existing partnerships to advanced biotechnology and biomanufacturing, and enhance biosafety and biosecurity innovation, practices, and norms.
Singh said India’s ever-growing Bio-Economy graph is going to contribute significantly to India’s Overall Economy. He said, India has a 3-5% market share in the global biotechnology industry and it ranks 12th in the world in biotech and 3rd in Asia-pacific.
The Minister said India has the third largest Startups ecosystem globally; and the largest vaccine manufacturer. Moreover, India’s ranking in global science and technology indices continues to rise and India has been ranked 40th among the innovative economies as per Global Innovation Index, 2022.
He pointed out that the Department of Biotechnology has created and nurtured a strong foundation in biotechnology innovation, research and manufacturing across segments such as bio-pharma, bio-services, agri biotech, industrial biotech, and bioinformatics through public-private partnership, Make-in-India and Atma Nirbhar Bharat initiatives of the Government.
Singh said Indian Government has always supported technology-driven innovation towards the creation of a ‘future-ready’ technology platform in line with the Prime Minister Modi’s vision of Aatmanirbharta and he congratulated DBT and NSF for building on the bilateral collaborations between India and USA through this Implementation Arrangement.
The minister said the climate change, inadequate resource utilisation, an unsustainable pattern of material consumption and waste generation are global threats and require concerted sustainable interventions and therefore called for futuristic research and innovation strategies for accelerating Biomanufacturing are essential to address global sustainable goals.
The Minister said the ‘Implementation Arrangement’ will lay the foundation for collaboration between the two countries on accelerating innovations in the area of ‘Biotechnology Innovation and Biomanufacturing.’
This will advance knowledge, technologies, and innovation through supportive collaborative research to empower biotechnology industries and promote bioeconomy of both the countries, he added.
NSF Director Dr Sethuraman Panchanathan said that “USA and India can together address pressing global needs such as climate mitigation and energy goals through biotechnology innovation and biomanufacturing.”
DBT Secretray Dr Rajesh S Gokhale added that “this partnership will be an important step to mutually address the challenges in the innovation space as well as for enhancing technological opportunities. This will also bring synergy to DBT’s initiatives for fostering high performance Biomanufacturing- an integrated approach towards promoting circular economy for Green, Clean and Prosperous India.”
