Institutions involved in R&D should hire talented scientists including Indians overseas at desired pay scales says Sibal

Updated on: Saturday, June 08, 2013

Pushing for creation of Intellectual Property Rights in field of technology, Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal said institutions involved in R&D should hire talented scientists, including Indians overseas, at desired pay scales.

“Pick up research people of excellence from around the world. Bring them into your institutions. We now have system put in place that allows you to do that. Give them the scales of salary that you want...Young Indians around the world are very keen to come back to India,” Sibal said while speaking at an event for setting up research centre at IIT Roorkee.

An agreement between Indian Railways'' unit RailTel, Department of Telecom and IIT Roorkee was signed on the occasion for setting up Telecom Centre of Excellence (TCOE) at IIT Roorkee.

This is ninth TCOE set-up, which will be funded by RailTel for first five years for entire research done by it.

Sibal said its time to assess achievements of other TCOE and collaborate to enhance Indian IPR.

“When I was in HRD (Human Resource Development), we set up a Kakodkar Committee to give autonomy to the IITs and we succeeded to large extent. We extended giving autonomy to institutions but are the institutes giving autonomy to the people who work within the institution?” he asked.

The Minister said innovation would hinge on the extent of autonomy given to scientists involved in research work.

“If you do not give access to those minds and liberate those minds from bureaucratic control of IIT institutions...you will not get innovation,” Sibal said.

To push R&D, DoT is working to set up Telecom Research and Development fund of around Rs 5,000 crore under 12th Five Year Plan. This will fund R&D, facilitate creation of IPR and patents and provide soft loans for such purposes, among others.

Institutions involved in R&D should hire talented scientists including Indians overseas at desired pay scales says Sibal

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