NEW DELHI: India is today witnessing a sort of reverse brain drain with several Indian-origin scientists abroad keen to return home, Union science and technology minister Jitendra Singh said.
While releasing new guidelines for ‘ease of doing science: towards less government more governance” at an event to mark the 36th foundation day of the Department of Biotechnology on Sunday, the minister said several science schemes like Ramalingaswami re-entry fellowship are wooing Indian scientists back to their motherland and the “credit for this goes to the enabling atmosphere generated by PM Narendra Modi”.
Jitendra Singh also pointed out that the department of biotechnology (DBT) has established 15 theme-based autonomous institutions across the country and that the department has contributed to the development of all aspects of biotechnology and that the best of biotechnology is yet to come.
“Due to enormous support received both from the government & private sector, the biotechnology sector has seen a rapid growth and India is now being rated among the top 12 biotechnology destinations in the world,” he said.
The Ramalingaswami fellowship is a scheme under the DBT that was launched in 2006-07 with the aim to bring back Indian scientists working abroad. The scheme provides a consolidated monthly remuneration of Rs 1 lakh per month in addition to HRA.
Talking to TOI, DBT secretary Rajesh Sudhir Gokhale said, “Around 600-650 fellowships have been given under the Ramalingaswami fellowship scheme under biotechnology.”
Gokhale, who himself is an example of reverse brain drain, had joined National Institute of Immunology before he came to DBT after conducting his postdoctoral training at Stanford University. He is known for his studies on the metabolic diversity of pathogens.
“Fellowship apart, there are also several NRIs and Indian-origin people who are returning to India after seeing the growing opportunities in the country,” Gokhale said.
S&T secretary Chandra Shekhar told TOI that “there are several re-entry fellowships being run under different divisions of the S&T department that are pretty good as they offer more than 1.2 lakh to 1.5 lakh remuneration per month and provide a very good research grant for five years. These scientists can then find good government positions in India. Now, even the startup ecosystem in the country is good and their number has gone drastically up in the last few years.”
As per MEA data, around 13.6 million Indian nationals were living abroad as of February 2020. A considerable portion of this population, who are students and work permit professionals, expressed interest to return to their home country.