The Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser (PSA) convened the Brainstorming Session and First Meeting of Nodal Officers for the Mission on Science & Technology for Sustainable Livelihood System today (October 22nd, 2024) at Vigyan Bhawan Annexe in New Delhi.
The meeting was chaired by Dr. (Mrs.) Parvinder Maini, Scientific Secretary, O/o PSA and was joined by key government officials, identified as nodal officers from various ministries/departments including Department of Science & Technology, Ministry of Rural Development, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Indian Council of Agricultural Research, Department of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change and Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
This mission aims to leverage scientific advancements and technological innovations to enhance livelihoods and promote sustainable development across communities. The mission, to be implemented by DST, was recommended during the 22nd Prime Minister’s Science, Technology & Innovation Advisory Council (PM-STIAC) meeting held on January 19, 2023, to strengthen the technology delivery mechanism for improving quality of life.
In her opening remarks, Dr. Maini highlighted the need for collaboration across sectors, bringing convergence of existing programs to create scalable and inclusive livelihood models for ensuring last mile connectivity of the STI interventions in the mission. The key objective of today’s meeting included defining the roles and responsibilities of each ministry/department in the different components of the program and formulating a strategy for selecting pilot sites for implementation.
Presentation was made by Dr. Sangeeta Agarwal, Scientist-F, O/o PSA highlighting the objectives of the mission, importance of definite roles of each participating ministry/department for successful implementation of the program and also presented the strategy for the selection of sites for pilot initiation of the mission. This was followed by presentation by Dr. Anita Aggarwal, DST on the SEED Division programs and IIT Delhi on Unnat Bharat Abhiyan.
After the presentations, the Chair invited interventions from the nodal officers of each ministry/department. Each ministry/department clearly brought out the efforts being made by them in implementing their flagship schemes at the district and village levels. They shared insights on how these schemes may converge and contribute to the national mission.
The session concluded with all the nodal officers agreeing to provide inputs regarding ongoing schemes/programs and their geographical spread. These inputs shall aid in identification and selection of sites for pilot scale implementation of the mission.