A bill to provide for the establishment of a Regional Centre for Biotechnology for training and education as an institution of national importance was tabled in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday.
The Regional Centre for Biotechnology Bill, 2011, to be set up in the national capital region under the auspices of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), will undertake research in the field of biotechnology. The bill was tabled by Vilasrao Deshmukh, Minister of Science and Technology and Earth Sciences.
The Centre proposes to engage students in research by integrating science, engineering and medicine with a view to creating high quality human resource in disciplinary and interdisciplinary areas.
The bill also seeks to create physical infrastructure in critical platform technologies to support inter-disciplinary education training and research in biotechnology for providing interface between agriculture or veterinary sciences and engineers and environmental biologists, ecologists and engineers for agricultural and environmental technologies in order to help molecular breeding, bio-energy and green technologies.
The Centre is expected to help produce human resources tailored to drive innovation in biotechnology, particularly in areas of new opportunities and to fill talent gap in deficient areas.