Sophisticated Analytical & Technical Help Institutes: SATHI | 04 Feb 2020

Why in News

The Department of Science & Technology (Ministry of Science and Technology) has launched a unique scheme called Sophisticated Analytical & Technical Help Institutes (SATHI).

• The DST has already set up 3 such centres in the country, one each at IIT Kharagpur, IIT Delhi and BHU. It is planned to set up 5 SATHI Centres every year for the next four years.
• These Centres have major analytical instruments and advanced manufacturing facilities to provide common services of high-end analytical testing, thus avoiding duplication and reduced dependency on foreign sources.

Key Points

• Science and Technology infrastructure:
  
  • Address the need for shared, professionally managed and strong Science and Technology infrastructure in the country which is easily accessible to academia, start-ups, manufacturing, industry and R&D labs.
• Efficient Use of Equipments:
  
  • Address the problems of accessibility, maintenance, redundancy and duplication of expensive equipment in Institutions.
• Intellectual Property Rights :
  
  • Address the issue of Intellectual property (IP) creation and protection, a digital platform will be created which will facilitate seamless application and capture IPRs (Intellectual Property Rights).
• Knowledge Translation Clusters:
  
  • These clusters will be set up across different technology sectors including in new and emerging sectors for designing, fabrication and proof of concept and further scaling up technology clusters.
• Besides the SATHI initiative, extra funds to 100 top-performing departments in universities and IITs etc will be provided in 2020 for augmentation of their research facilities to global benchmarks.
• The research efforts of these supported departments will be in sync with the national priorities of excellence in manufacturing, waste processing, clean energy and water, and Start-up India, etc.

Source: PIB