The Lok Sabha today approved a Bill to provide legislative backing to the Regional Centre for Biotechnology and empower it to award masters and Phd degrees, just like the Indian Institute of Science (IISc).
The Regional Centre for Biotechnology Bill, 2016, which was passed by a voice vote, also seeks to provide the status of "national importance" to the Centre for facilitating transfer of technology and knowledge and making it a hub for biotechnology expertise in the Asian region.
The legislation would enable the institution to chalk out its own syllabus, as per the changing requirements of the sector. It would also enable other allied institutes of the Department of Biotechnology to be brought under the umbrella of this institute to give academic degrees.
The biotech centre is expected to provide highly skilled manpower for research in the area of medicine, agriculture, clean technology, Science and Technology Minister Harsh Vardhan said while replying to a short debate in Lok Sabha.
It will be a state-of-the art institution which will promote cooperation at the international level, he said.
The Centre, located at Faridabad in Haryana, would be a regional hub for interdisciplinary education, training and research in biotechnology with emphasis on education programmes relevant to the industry, including bio-drug discovery science, nano-science and medicine, imaging techniques, designer crops, bio-engineering and biomaterials, and aims at overcoming the acute shortage of skilled human resources in India, Vardhan said.
It would be a hub of biotechnology expertise in the countries in South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) region, and more generally in the Asia region, and to address human resources needs in the region, he said, adding that the genesis of the bill dated back to a meeting of the UNESCO in 2003.
"Biotechnology comes very close when it comes to helping human development in the fields like vaccine, genome research. There is a need for sharing and knowledge at an international level. There is also a need for coordintaion in Asian region," he said.
The government through an executive order in April 2009 had established the Regional Centre for Biotechnology Training and Education at Faridabad.
The earlier NDA government headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee had decided to open such an institute. Following this, an agreement was signed between India and UNESCO to set up this institution to train skilled manpower in the Indo-Pacific region.
Refuting charges by some members, Vardhan said the
Regional Centre was not a symbol of India "kneeling before America or China" but it will be collaborative effort with the member nations of UNESCO.
It will help reversing the brain-drain of scientists from India, he said.
The Minister said India had a huge potential in the field and in the coming years, bio-technology sector would reach greater heights.
Maintaining that genetically-engineered crops were helping raise agriculture productivity, Vardhan cited the example of Bt Cotton and said India has become "the number one producer in the world".
With regard to Bt Brinjal, he said the last government tried to introduce it in 2009, but due to opposition from some groups, it was "put into moratorium" till 2013.
Opposition on this issue has dwindled since then, "so we are moving towards introducing Bt Brinjal," the Minister said.
He also said the government is planning to introduce the bio-technology regulatory authority bill in Parliament soon. "We are not going to compromise on regulatory mechanism".
Members who participated in the discussion over the Bill included Shashi Tharoor (Cong), Arun Kumar (RLSP), Dushyant Chautala (INLD), Prahlad Patel (BJP) and Richard Hay (Nominated).
Some of the members emphasized the need for reviving ancient scientific knowledge.
