Thaindian News

New Delhi, Nov 16 (IANS) There should be 100 innovation councils at the sectoral level to ensure creativity and innovation at the bottom of the pyramid, National Innovative Council (NIC) chief Sam Pitroda said Wednesday.

“We decided to write to all state level ministers to start state innovation councils, write to all the ministers to set up sectoral councils. Given a choice I would like to set up 100 sectoral councils,” he said while releasing the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) Industrial Innovation Framework.

“Each of these sectoral councils would then have a domain expert who in turn will come out and give a roadmap for the next decade,” said Pitroda, who is also adviser to the prime minister.

Describing innovation as “a game-changer”, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had Tuesday called for devising a model of innovation that benefits not only the rich but also the poor through poverty eradication, development of agriculture and green energy.

The National Innovation Council was set up by Manmohan Singh in 2010 under the chairmanship of Pitroda to discuss, analyse and help implement strategies for inclusive innovation in India and prepare a roadmap for 2010-2020, which has been designated as the decade of innovation.

According to Pitroda, innovation should be looked upon as a platform, so it’s not about what happens in industry R&D; labs and universities but also about innovation in governance, education, health and social sector.

“We really want to focus on innovation at the bottom of the pyramid for the poor. The tough problem that we were not able to solve in the past is how do you take this development down to the poor people, he said.

“It is not about merely focussing on prosperity at the top…we really need to put our nose down and look at 400-500 million below poverty line people to see what is innovation going to bring to them.”