Government to fund 16 projects for developing technology to combat COVID-19

Vijay Mohan

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 17

Upscaling efforts for combating the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ministry of Science and Technology has recommended funding of 16 projects for developing technologies that can be commercialised and mass produced by the industry.

The ministry’s National Research Development Corporation (NRDC) had received 65 proposals from innovators, which were screened by an external technology expert committee to assess their relevancy and technical feasibility.

The proposals had been sought by NRDC under the ministry’s grants-in-aid promotional programme for development of the required technologies and allied products.

Under the programme, financial support is extended for development of COVID-19 technologies in the area of tracking, testing and treatment, covering process scale up, pilot plant studies, validation and authentication of products, registration of products with regulatory authorities, conducting field trials, generation of toxicology data and bridging the gap between the lab scale development and industrial requirements.

The projects to be funded are in the area of testing, tracing and treatment of COVID-19.

The technologies selected for support are in the area of test kits, sanitisers, ventilators, PPEs, masks and COVID-19 hospital effluents treatment.

The organisations selected include government research and development institutions, academic institutes, defence establishments as well as private industry and individual innovators.

“There is a huge gap in availability of grant funds for upscaling and prototyping of innovative technologies,” said Dr H Purushotham, chairman and managing director, NRDC. “This financial support would help the innovators and start-ups in accelerating the technology development process and bring the innovative technologies to the market place within the next one year.”

A Compendium of Indian Technologies for Combating COVID-19 has also been brought out by the NRDC, which has listed about 200 technologies developed by Indian institutions and startups.

So far NRDC has transferred nine technologies to startups and MSMEs which are useful in combating COVID-19 in the country, a statement issued by the ministry said on Friday.