Thiruvananthapuram, Oct 17 (IANS): Union Minister of State for Science and Technology Jitendra Singh on Thursday said after Narendra Modi took over as the Prime Minister, a big thrust has been given to sectors like Biotechnology by unveiling the Bio-E3 policy.

“As India has come to play a big global role, it is now time to creatively think how to add value to the outcome of these policies and roll them out and provide a handholding to the otherwise left-out sections as well,” said Singh while inaugurating the community enterprises of Scheduled Castes-Scheduled Tribes communities of Kerala promoted jointly by the Tribal Science Heritage project of Biotechnology Research and Innovation Council-Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology (BRIC-RGCB) and Swadeshi Science Movement-Kerala (SSM-K) at BRIC-RGCB campus.

He added that it is time to scale up efforts to add value to the fruits of scientific research of leading institutions and roll them out for the inclusive progress of society.

The event was attended by 200 beneficiaries of the BRIC-RGCB’s Tribal Heritage Project and Agro-based Science Technology & Innovation Hub of Swadeshi Science Movement-Kerala and Vijnana Bharat.

Referring to the presence of leading science and technology institutions in the city, Singh said Kerala capital has become the Science Capital of the country, just as it is known as the tourism capital.

“Thiruvananthapuram can also be called the science capital of India as it has become a favourite destination for scientists. It has immense scientific and research potential, because of the resources and also because of the legacy of science research and innovation which has been there for generations,” Singh said.

He added that there were just 50 startups in 2014, now it is almost 9000.

“The country’s bioeconomy was just 10 billion USD, today it’s about 130 billion USD,” he said.

He said that during the outbreak of Covid-19, Indian scientific institutions had demonstrated their strength before the world as a faculty from RGCB was part of the global presentation of the vaccine-a product of biotechnology department.

“The concept of ST hubs aligned with Prime Minister Modi’s vision of rolling out exclusive initiatives and schemes for the inclusion of the marginalised sections in the progress of the country. This initiative of Kerala has placed a pilot project for the entire country as a sustainable and innovative model of self-employment and self-livelihood,” Singh said.