New Delhi, Dec 04: The world is looking up to India as an emerging biomanufacturing hub, Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh said on Monday. He added that biotechnology startups and institutional linkages with industry will drive India’s bioeconomy in the years to come.
The Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Science & Technology; MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Space and Atomic Energy said this while inaugurating the “Global Bio-India 2023 International Conference” at Bharat Mandapam in the national capital here.
“Our bioeconomy witnessed double-digit growth rate year-on-year in the last 9/10 years under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi,” he said, adding, “In 2014, India’s bioeconomy stood at just about $10 billion, this fiscal we are likely to touch $150 billion and we look forward to having $300 Billion by 2030.”
Dr Jitendra said India has made rapid strides in the last 8/9 years. “We had just 55 (biotech) startups in 2014, now we have more than 6,000. Today, there are over 3,000 agritech startups and are very successful in areas like Aroma Mission and Purple Revolution. About 4,000 people are engaged with Lavender cultivation and earning lakhs of rupees,” he said.
The S&T Minister said biotechnology will provide the “future value addition” to India’s economy in the years to come. “India has a huge wealth of bioresources, an unsaturated resource waiting to be harnessed and an advantage in biotechnology especially due to the vast biodiversity and the unique bioresources in the Himalayas. Then there is the 7,500-km-long coastline and under the Deep Sea Mission, we are going to dig the biodiversity beneath the seas,” he said.
Dr Singh said biotechnology has emerged as a trending career option among the youth. In a recent survey of Class 12 students in Delhi, it was found that Biotechnology was ranked as the preferred stream at No.4/5 whereas earlier it didn’t figure anywhere as a career option, he said.
The union minister said PM Modi has created a milieu for entrepreneurship and a thriving industry. “We had everything, but we were possibly waiting for an enabling milieu to happen. And that enabling milieu happened after Prime Minister Modi came in,” he said.
Hailing PM Modi for taking the lead during the G20 New Delhi Summit, Dr Jitendra said the launch of Global Biofuel Alliance (GBA) will foster global collaboration for the advancement and widespread adoption of biofuels. “Biotechnology will be the key to Amrit Kaal economy and also to making India a frontline nation in the world,” he said.
Stating that there is no more room for scepticism, Dr Singh said the policy planning changes during the nine years of leadership under PM Modi have created mutual trust between public and private sectors.
Calling for wider synergy among government, academia, startups and industry, he said the dictum is: “The whole of science, plus the whole of government, plus the whole of the nation.”
