Considering that innovation is an important component for the economic growth, the Government has created National Innovation Council (NInC) in 2010 to rethink and formulate new approaches for inclusive innovation in the country, there were schemes under the Ministry of Science & Technology that encouraged innovative thinking. The Government through the NInC, in this decade of Innovation, has designed and piloted a new model of locally driven innovative approach where the Government acts only as a catalyst and facilitator. The Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) through its Technopreneur Promotion Programme (TePP) has supported 400 innovations in the country during the 11th Plan and through this support has been able to create 45 spin-offs. CSIR has Open Source Drug Discovery (OSDD) programme that has resulted in drug discovery for tuberculosis. In addition the New Millennium Indian Technology Leadership Initiative (NMITLI) of CSIR is an innovation centric S&T vehicle to take leadership position by Indian industry.
The Ministry learning from these experiences of the last 4-5 years has initiated 2 new schemes in the 12th Plan to support any Indian individual innovators with innovative ideas and to convert them into demonstrable models/ prototypes etc. This scheme known as PRISM (Scheme on Promoting Innovations in Individuals, Start-ups and MSMEs) has been launched in the 12th Plan in this financial year by the Department of Scientific & Industrial Research (DSIR). The other scheme namely i-STED (Innovation, Science and Technology based Entrepreneurship Development) has been initiated by the Department of Science & Technology in financial year 2013-14 and aims at identifying challenges and issues in an area and propose its solution based on technological and innovative approaches.
The Minister of Science & Technology and Earth Sciences Shri S.Jaipal Reddy gave this information in reply to a written question in the Lok Sabha today.