The much celebrated and well meaning Atal Innovation Mission seem to be heading towards a quagmire of bureaucratic shenanigans evading the key outcomes for which a sizeable budgetary allocation has been made. They say पूत के पाँव पालने में ही दिखाई पड़ जाते हैं meaning thereby that it lies all in the inception. The envisioning of a plan or a programme creates all the difference.
If the scheme guidelines are to be analyzed and scrutinized closely, there is nothing which is differentiated or inspiring to the very least which can make the requisite impact on the innovation horizon of the country which already has a sizeable establishment of similar nature which is pegged at a magic number of 291 as per NITI Aayog statistics itself revealed during a twitter chat.
The 21 pager Guidelines for setting up of Incubation Centres under Atal Innovation Mission has chosen to devote merely 2 paragraphs limited to half a page on the core subject matter of innovation.
At a time when the country is passing through a major transition, and is attempting to raise its head high in the comity of nations, the bid for a mega national scheme boosting innovations should have had been a serious one.
By simply jotting down a laundry list of 15 odd areas/sectors for establishing incubation centres, the mandarins at NITI Aayog have left the imagination about the direction of innovation entirely to the applicants as if some new set of wisdom has dawned upon them all of a sudden.
India has had been having sizeable R&D spending for decades under the aegis of various Ministries/Departments but without a convergence of the research & development programme with the due national priorities.
The biggest concern which emanates out of this otherwise operational guideline of fund disbursement is that it lays more emphasis on a 10,000 square feet built up area than the definitive and desired direction of innovation.
It nowhere attempts to take advantage of the 35000 feet tactical view which is supposed to be possessed by the top-notch official think tank of the country.
It nowhere even mentions the existence of the various ongoing national programmes and missions, what to talk of knitting them all into a seamless national drive.
The scheme document fossilizes the deterministic view that the permanent bureaucratic machinery is averse to jot down even the summary of the past experiences and learnings even in the most abstracted for the form.
The travesty with the Atal Innovation Mission's Incubators is the fact that it fails to inspire and create the requisite aspiration for the setting up of an incubator.
Some of the key pertinent questions which immediately came rushing to the mind were :
Ironically, it's probably not the money which is lacking for the effulgence of India's innovation spree, but the convergence of its various strands of national life which alone shall lay down the long list of problem statements which this young nation endowed with incredible intelligence would love to solve.
The mere change of the name of an institution, at times doesn't transform its deeply entrenched characteristic soul. What to talk of National Transformation?
If the scheme guidelines are to be analyzed and scrutinized closely, there is nothing which is differentiated or inspiring to the very least which can make the requisite impact on the innovation horizon of the country which already has a sizeable establishment of similar nature which is pegged at a magic number of 291 as per NITI Aayog statistics itself revealed during a twitter chat.
The 21 pager Guidelines for setting up of Incubation Centres under Atal Innovation Mission has chosen to devote merely 2 paragraphs limited to half a page on the core subject matter of innovation.
At a time when the country is passing through a major transition, and is attempting to raise its head high in the comity of nations, the bid for a mega national scheme boosting innovations should have had been a serious one.
By simply jotting down a laundry list of 15 odd areas/sectors for establishing incubation centres, the mandarins at NITI Aayog have left the imagination about the direction of innovation entirely to the applicants as if some new set of wisdom has dawned upon them all of a sudden.
India has had been having sizeable R&D spending for decades under the aegis of various Ministries/Departments but without a convergence of the research & development programme with the due national priorities.
The biggest concern which emanates out of this otherwise operational guideline of fund disbursement is that it lays more emphasis on a 10,000 square feet built up area than the definitive and desired direction of innovation.
It nowhere attempts to take advantage of the 35000 feet tactical view which is supposed to be possessed by the top-notch official think tank of the country.
It nowhere even mentions the existence of the various ongoing national programmes and missions, what to talk of knitting them all into a seamless national drive.
The scheme document fossilizes the deterministic view that the permanent bureaucratic machinery is averse to jot down even the summary of the past experiences and learnings even in the most abstracted for the form.
The travesty with the Atal Innovation Mission's Incubators is the fact that it fails to inspire and create the requisite aspiration for the setting up of an incubator.
Some of the key pertinent questions which immediately came rushing to the mind were :
- Why couldn't the document draw from the overall success of the existing incubator base, and justify the need for this newer set of incubators explaining in greater detail as to what would be different apart from the disbursement of Rs 10 crores over a period of 5 years.
- Why has such a major scheme not chosen to define innovation in the Indian context? Say for example Advance, Applied and Appropriate. If the official think tank would not choose to inspire and guide, who shall in the country then? Who shall set the context of innovation, scale of innovation and impact of the same?
- Why there is no guideline apriori about the functioning and expected outcome of these newer set of incubators? An open ended grant would simply go down the budgetary funnel without any desirable impact.
- Why couldn't the Incubator Areas/Focus in Annexure-2 could be mapped to the 25 odd sectors of Make in India? Today's manufacturing is all Science & Technology Driven which is all about innovation.
- Why couldn't a reference be made to a central database carrying key national R&D priorities requiring innovation drawn from various line agencies like DRDO, CSIR, DBT, DST, DoS, DAE etc. Can there be an innovation without a proper delineation and detailed determination of a problem statement?
Ironically, it's probably not the money which is lacking for the effulgence of India's innovation spree, but the convergence of its various strands of national life which alone shall lay down the long list of problem statements which this young nation endowed with incredible intelligence would love to solve.
The mere change of the name of an institution, at times doesn't transform its deeply entrenched characteristic soul. What to talk of National Transformation?
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