Thaindian News

Kolkata, July 16 (IANS) The West Bengal government Saturday appointed National Innovation Council head Sam Pitroda as adviser to its “resurgent Bengal” project.

Pitroda, who held a meeting with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Industry and Information Technology Minister Partha Chatterjee at the state secretariat Writers’ Building, said he will work in the areas of education, health, innovation and technology for the resurgence of the eastern state.

“My background is technology, education, innovation and I have done some good work on health. So wherever I can help… I know experts in these fields who would join us in this effort,” Pitroda told mediapersons.

“In Bengal, we have to learn to innovate to create jobs. We have talked about industrial clusters. As the part of the National Innovation Council, we are now working on innovation in clusters,” said Pitroda, considered the father of India’s communication revolution.

Pitroda shares a very good rapport with Banerjee, who had roped him in during her stint as the railways minister for laying of optic fibre cable network along rail tracks for commercial utilisation.

Banerjee announced that Pitroda will act as an advisor for Bengal.

“We have invited Sam Pitroda to help us in converting Kolkata into a knowledge city. He will also help in the resurgence of Bengal. He will act as an advisor for Bengal in terms of modernisation, industrialisation and creation of a knowledge hub,” said Banerjee.

Pitroda added: “Maybe we will select first five clusters and see innovations. What it means is set up incubators, provide training on packing, copyrights, trademark, entrepreneurship and really force people to think of innovating in clusters. Innovation is going to be the most important element in industry going forward. For industry, we have to innovate, for jobs we have to innovate.”

“There is lot more work ahead of us and there is very little time. Both of us (Pitroda and Banerjee) are in a hurry,” smiled Pitroda.