Department of Biotechnology, Government of India sanctions grant and funds to various institutes and organisations to conduct research and development in the field of biotechnology. Based on some data released by Department of Biotechnology (DBT) available on http://www.data.gov.in, Indian Botanists Blog-o-Journal took an attempt to analyse the position of each states of India with regard to biotechnological research. Let us see the number of ongoing projects in different states. Based on the number of ongoing projects (as on March 6th 2013) we have categorised different states into three groups.

    Group B – States having less than fifty but not less than twenty ongoing projects were placed under this group. Among total number of nine states again, Haryana has forty eight numbers of ongoing projects followed by Gujarat and Odhissa each forty four where as Punjab and Assam having thirty five and thirty three number of ongoing projects respectively. Jammu Kashmir, Uttarakhand and Manipur each scoring twenty one number of ongoing projects and twenty to Madhya Pradesh.

    Group C – In this category we placed all the remaining states having less than twenty numbers of ongoing projects. Himachal Pradesh having seventeen numbers of ongoing projects secured top position in this group whereas Rajasthan with fourteen numbers of ongoing projects was second in this group. Meghalaya and Pondicherry each having nine, Goa only five and remaining states namely Bihar, Jharkhand, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Andaman & Nicobar, Chhattisgarh, Sikkim and Mizoram have even less than five number of ongoing projects.

    The purpose of this analysis is to understand the position of different states of India with regard to biotechnological research. From the above graphics based on the number of ongoing projects it is noticed that there is a great disparity in respect of number of ongoing projects funded by Department of Biotechlogy, Government of India. Probably number of research institutes, intellectual index, population density, geography may be some of the reason for this disparity. It is difficult to generalise the factors, and backwardness of each state has to be addressed specifically. Government of India in general and ministry of science and technology in particular sure will take cognizance of this available data with them. Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) Policy-2013 announced by the Government, a couple of months ago will help to overcome this issue. STI-Policy’2013 aims to establish world class infrastructure for Research and Development (R&D) in some selected areas. Similar comprehensive analysis may be done to define the parameters for selecting any region or states to establish world class research and development institutes. States falling under Group C in the above analysis requires special attention. Announcement to establish ‘The Indian Institute of Agricultural Bio-technology‘ at Ranchi, Jharkhand in budget 2013-14 is a welcome step in this regard. Further STI-Policy’2013 aims to enhance India`s global share of scientific publications from the present 3.5% to 7.0 % and also to double the global share of Indian research publications and quadruple the number of research papers in the top 1% journals from current levels by 2020. These aims may be attributed to the region falling under Group A and some top regions falling under Group B. Established institutes at Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh may be provided adequate facilities and infrastructure to focus on quality based high end research to meet our global share of scientific publications.
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