Leh: The union government on Monday announced a special drive for StartUps and R&D activities in the new and emerging areas in the University ecosystems of Ladakh and Jammu & Kashmir and North Eastern region, by providing basic infrastructure and enabling scientific facilities.
The special drive was announced by Union Minister of State Dr Jitendra Singh at the Vishwavidyalaya Anusandhan Utsav 2023 at New Delhi, who also handed over a PURSE grant to each of the Vice Chancellors of different Universities.
Prof S K Mehta, Vice-Chancellor, University of Ladakh (UoL) received PURSE Grant Award of Rs 6.78 Crore from the Minister for the establishment of Centralized Interdisciplinary Science Instrumentation Centre (CISIC) at the varsity.
Prof Ashok Kumar Sharma, Registrar, UoL, Dr Sonam Joldan, Dean Research, UoL, Dr Riyaz M K Khan, Expert faculty Geology, and Dr Rakesh Chandra, Coordinator of the DST-PURSE project, UoL also attended the award function, said a university spokesperson.
Earlier, addressing the gathering, Jitendra said, “In India’s quest for competitive advantage, our universities and related institutions need to play a major role towards generating high calibre human resources as repositories of national intellectual wealth in the S&T sector. In light of the vision of PM Narendra Modi that India’s self-reliance will be based on five pillars — economy, infrastructure, technology-driven system, vibrant demography, and demand it is prudent to strengthen the foundation of relevant R&D infrastructure across the Nation to contribute to the development of a self-reliant India.”
Dr Jitendra Singh said that in order to meet these diverse challenges and strengthen the S&T infrastructure support system in the universities and other related academic institutions, the Department of Science and Technology (DST) nurtures and supports a variety of infrastructure related schemes like FIST, PURSE, SAIF, etc. towards augmenting and facilitating the R&D equipment for research activities at various Universities/ Institutes and other Academic organizations as well as promote industry-academia linkages.
“It’s our endeavour that the youth of our country have access to quality R&D infrastructure to pursue research in all areas of S&T,” Jitendra said.
The Promotion of University Research and Scientific Excellence (PURSE) with a nationwide reach supports the university’s research ecosystem by making high-end research equipment available to our academicians and scientists, enabling our universities to compete with global standards,” Jitendra added.
