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No demand for science in India

George Iype in Bangalore

Earlier this year, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, India's apex science research organization, called for applications from young scientists below 35 for its prestigious yearly Young Scientists Awards.

But the response to the advertisement startled CSIR Director-General Dr R A Mashelkar. For though the CSIR bestows the Young Scientists Awards on eight scientists, he found that there were only three suitable candidates among the applicants this year.

In anguish, Dr Mashelkar whom academics and scientists affectionately call the CEO of Indian science, wrote to the directors of the CSIR laboratories across the country: "The CSIR could die if good science is not done in its laboratories."

Today, the average age of the scientists in CSIR is over 50.

The CSIR, its laboratories and other science institutes in India thus face an acute shortage of talented researchers and scientists, with brilliant young students going away from science into professional courses.

Why are there no takers for the scientific streams of studies? Why is it that very few students enrol for science and fewer pursue careers in research? Is Indian scientific research, which was all set to grow leaps and bounds by the end of this century, in a state of decline?

Yes, reply many scientists. But there are few to listen to the solutions they have to offer.

"It is sad. Many of us who jumped to take up careers in science years ago were thrilled by science... But today's young generation is not motivated to pursue science as a career," says Dr Goverdhan Mehta, director of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.

"The students' logic is simple. When there are immense career opportunities, why should s/he go in for a career in science and research, which don't pay well. I would say that one cause for the declining standards of science education and scientific research in our country is [the pressure of] market forces," he said.

Scientists like Dr Mehta feel there are other reasons too for science being sidelined, both by the government and the students. The reasons include inadequate budgetary allocation for scientific research, stifling bureaucratic delays and a lack of a reform process for higher education in Indian universities.

Scientists agree that Indian students in schools start with superior strength in the mathematics and the physical and life sciences, compared to their counterparts in developed countries like the United States. Indians students are also creative and innovative, considering how their degree of participation in the hundreds of science exhibitions in cities and towns across the country.

But scientists say that science offers little scope for the students as a career in the university system once schooling is over, and that they end up choosing other attractive propositions like engineering, information technology, medicine and business management.

Dr Mehta is sad about the condition of India's mainline universities and colleges. "Pitiable, terrible conditions exist there. Young people are no longer exposed to excellent experimental modes of studies and equipment in universities. There are only dilapidated classrooms and dysfunctional machines in colleges," he says.

But Professor C N R Rao, president of the Jawharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, who has been closely involved in drafting the science policy for many years, says it is not the condition of the universities alone that does the damage.

According to him, there is an "oppressive atmosphere" in the science ministry and other related departments of the Union government. He says research institutes suffer extreme delays in getting grants because the administration is dehumanised.

For example, says Professor Rao, the Department of Science and Technology's Science and Engineering Research Council takes one-and-a-half to two years to sanction grants.

"How can we expect young people to start their research careers when nobody higher up bothers to reply to letters of request for grants?" he asked.

Professor P Balaram of the Indian Institute of Science says, "The engine of science in India is slowing down. The bare statistics of successive Union Budgets reveal an apparent increase in the allocation to science departments. But that has not helped," he says.

"Science departments in major universities, once powerful research centres, have become routine degree-granting institutions. The mechanisms for funding science are groaning under the weight of administrative delays," he says.

Scientists also argue that it is a mistake to believe that good applied science is not done in the country. This has led to the government pumping in large sums of money into mega-projects with a very limited scientific base and with little or no scope of succeeding.

Professor Balaram feels the government must take steps to bring science back into the reckoning. He suggests the government should set up an autonomous body on the lines of the Canadian National Research Council or the National Science Foundation in the United States to oversee support for basic sciences.

According to Dr P Rama Rao, chairman of the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board and former secretary to the department of science and technology, the government must raise budgetary allocations for science since, at present, funding for science is less than one per cent of the country's gross national product. It ought to be raised to at least two per cent, he says.

According to him, ministries like science and technology should ideally allocate their funds like the ministry of defence does.

For instance, the defence ministry has reserved six percentage of its total defence budgetary allocation for its apex research wing, the Defence Research Development Organisation. Thus, as the defence budget increases every year, the DRDO funding rises correspondingly.

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