Lok Sabha Question No. 1719 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2021-12-08
Subject: Development of Nano Science Technology
Ministry: SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Asked by: S. Gnanathiraviam

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY DEPARTMENT OF SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

## LOK SABHA

## UNSTARRED QUESTION No.1719 TO BE ANSWERED ON 08/12/2021

## DEVELOPMENT OF NANO SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY

1719. SHRI GNANATHIRAVIAM S.:

मंğी

Will  the  Minister  of  SCIENCE  AND  TECHNOLOGY ǒव£ान और Ĥौƭोिगकȧ be pleased to state:

- (a) whether the Government is aware of the local mission of research and development of Nano Science and Technology;
- (b) if  so,  the details thereof and the steps taken for development in the field;
- (c) whether the Government proposes to allocate more funds to encourage effective research work in this field; and
- (d)
- if so, the details thereof ?

## ANSWER

MINISTER OF STATE (INDEPENDENT CHARGE) OF THE MINISTRY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY AND EARTH SCIENCES (DR. JITENDRA SINGH)

ǒव£ान और Ĥौƭोिगकȧ तथा पृØवी ǒव£ान मंğालय क े राÏय मंğी ( èवतंğ Ĥभार) (डॉ . ǔजतɅġ िसंह)

- (a) Yes Sir. The Government of India (GOI), through Department of Science and  Technology  (DST),  launched  Nano  Science  and  Technology  Initiative (NSTI) in October 2002 to promote research and development in advanced area of Nano S&T. The initiative that was launched, was in line with similar initiatives launched by the developed countries across the world like USA, South Korea, Germany etc. Japan, a leader in Nano R&D, had an early launch almost at the starting of early 1990s.
- (b) DST was assigned the nodal Ministry/ Department for the promotion of R&D in Nano Area. As a follow-up of this initiative, the GOI launched the Nano Mission-Phase  I  (2007-12)  as  an  'Umbrella  Capacity  Building  Program',

anchored by DST, with an allocation of Rs. 1000 crores for 5 years. During this  period  DST  supported  Nano  Science  Units  in  several  Institutes/ Universities/ National Labs like Indian Institute of Science-Bengaluru, Indian Institute  of  Technology  -  Mumbai,  Kanpur,  Varanasi  and  Chennai,  Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai. At the end of Phase-I, in 2011, 4 Computational Materials Science units for exploring new Advanced Nano Materials and its applications were also set up at JNCASR-Bengaluru, Indian  Institute  of  Science-Bengaluru,  SN  Bose  National  Centre  for  Basic Sciences and SP Pune University, Pune. The DST had spend Rs 568.83 crore in this Nano Mission Phase-I.

During the same period, the other scientific Ministries/ Departments/ Agencies recognising the advantage of Nano Size materials R&D also started promoting  Nano  R&D  in  their  own  specific  domain.  As  a  result,  of  these combined  R&D  efforts  by  all  S&T  Departments/  Ministries  &  other  S&T funding agencies, India's position in Nano S&T research publications, that was at twelve position globally in 2002, improved to sixth global position in 2010. It may be noted that since 2005-12, India has been ranked globally as the third fastest growing nation with a Cumulative Aggregated Growth Rate (CAGR) of 29% in scientific publications in Nano Science and Technology. This growth resulted in India reaching the third global position in 2013-14, which it has retained till now, in terms of research publications in the field of  Nano  Science  &  Technology.  The  Nano  Mission  was  brought  under Research  and  Development  Programme  in  2017-18  with  more  focus  on developing Nano Technology. In 2019, we supported an Industry-Institute Joint  project  on  development  of  inner  anti-rust  coating  in  pipes  used  for

Chemical and Petro-chemical industries.

Subsequent to launch of Nano Mission Phase - I by DST, D/o Electronics and IT (DeitY) initiated a programme to establish Nanotechnology Initiatives Division to provide competitive support to carry out R&D through Grant-inAid (GIA) with a focus on developing Nanoelectronics based technologies and its commercialization. Other respective S&T Ministries/ Departments/ S&T Funding Agencies like D/o Biotechnology, CSIR, ICAR, ICMR, DoS, DAE and DRDO also started supporting R&D in Nano Science and Technology field in their respective domain though their EMR support Schemes. Representatives of all these funding agencies are involved in all meetings of DST.

In 2005, MeitY through one time funding of Rs 100 crore established two  state  of  the  art  Centre  of  Excellence  in  Nano  Electronics  Research (CENs) at IIT-Mumbai and IISc-Bengaluru respectively to carry out R&D in Nanoelectronics area. R&D carried out at these Centres have resulted in many  nanoelectronics  based  technologies/  sensors.  Recently,  MeitY  and DST had funded a major project titled NNetRA (Nanoelectronics Networking for  Research  and  Application)  at  IISc  and  IITs  at  Mumbai,  Chennai, Kharagpur and New Delhi at a total cost of 299 crore, with financial support distributed of 1:1:1 between DST, MeitY and the Institute. The objective of this project is to upgrade projects technologies from TRL 3-5 to TRL - 8-9 (Industry ready technologies for transfer). With two level monitoring done every 6 months followed by a Project Steering Committee every year, the Institutes have been able to upgrade TRL levels of 17 technologies to make them industry ready. These technologies are in five specific areas namely Agriculture, HealthCare, Environment, Devices and Security and Safety.

The Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR) had also initiated R&D in various fields of agriculture and allied areas employing Nanotechnology from 2OO4 onwards. The important areas which they are exploring include:

-  Developing  Polymeric  Nano  Materials  for  Packaging  and  Efficient Delivery of Nutraceuticals;
-  Nano-based  detection  of  organophosphate  pesticides  using  metalorganic framework conjugates;
-  Effective   delivery  of  nutrients,  insecticides  and  fungicides   through nano-particulates for better yield of ground nut and Chilli;
-  Development  of  nano-particle  (NP)  based  RNA  delivery   system   for imparting resistance  to viruses;
-  Effects  of metal oxide nanoparticles  on  soil bacterial communities; and
-  Improvement  in cotton Fabric quality by plasma Nano Technology and using Novel Nano coating for imparting antibacterial and  UV protection  properties in cotton and other textiles.

The key areas of Nanotechnology related research in Animal  and  Dairy Sciences include;

-  Development of thermostable peste des petits ruminants (PPR) vaccine;
-  Using spontaneously assembling of bio-degradable mesoporous silica nano-scaffolds;
-  Characterization and  studies  on residual  effect  of iron  oxide  nano particles  on frozen  bovine  spermatozoa;
-  Development of stem cell laden nanomaterial scaffold for nerve, bone and cartilage tissue regeneration in animals;
-  Development  &  Evaluation of  a  nano-carrier based novel  Foot-andMouth disease virus vaccine for non-parental delivery;
-  Nanoparticles as  delivery  vehicles  for  fortification  of  milk  and  milk products etc.

Recently, the IFFCO's Nano Biotechnology R&D Centre at Kalol, Gujrat has developed liquid Nano Urea that may be a good substitute for solid Urea, since plants can absorb upto 80 percent of Nano Urea which is in the form of a stable particle as against solid Urea which is absorbed as ion that is unstable.

DST, for manpower training, also has Domestic Post-Doctoral Fellowship programme, where candidates who have completed/ submitted their Doctoral Thesis can apply. Also, to generate specialized manpower in the NanoElectronics Area, MeitY has been supporting a programme called Indian Nanoelectronics User Programme (INUP) since 2008 with DST PIs also emanating  from  this  training  at  CENs.  In  September,  2021,  MeitY  has approved new training programme namely INUP-i2i (Indian Nanoelectronics User  Programme-Idea  to  Innovation)  at  IIT-Mumbai,  IIT-Chennai,  IIT-New Delhi  and  IIT-Kharagpur and IISc to  provide  the  facility  at  these  CENs  to maximum researchers in the country, thus expanding the user base and also support/mentor Start-ups/Industry and R&D projects in the nano field.

On the International Collaboration front, Nano Mission now NPNST has already collaborations with DESY, Germany for use of State-of-Art Synchortron namely PETRA-III by Indian Users. In fact, India has contributed for building a India specific Beam Line at PETRA-III against which, DESY has allowed 758 days of Beamline time on the remaining 22 beam lines which has been successfully utilised by Indian Scientists. As a result of this, the DESY  has  signed  an  MoU  with  JNCASR  on  behalf  of  DST  for  further cooperation on similar lines for next 5 years. Till February, 2020, the number

of  Scientists  and  students who visited PETRA is 53  with 41 Joint papers published in Journals of repute.

Similarly,  we  have  arrangement  with  KEK  Photon  factory  under  the Japan Agreement for utilising the photon beam lines by Indian Scientists. We have funded an instrumentation attachment with a specific Beam line that is used extensively & dedicatedly by Indian Scietists with Scientists from other countries joining on a competitive basis. We are about to complete the Phase-II of KEK Photon factory and the Joint Steering Committee has given a  go  ahead  to  prepare  the  proposal  jointly  for  Phase-III,  which  will  be processed shortly. Till December, 2020, 243 Scientists and their students have used the facility with 143 Joint Publications in leading Journals.

The  third  International  Collaboration  is  with  Rutherford  Appleton Laboratory  in  Oxfordshire,  UK  where  ISIS  Neutron  and  Muon  Source, available in RAL Lab is used by the Indian Scientific Community since 2015. It is a world-leading Centre for Research in the Physical and Life Sciences and the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) owns it. ISIS Neutron and Muon Source produces beams of neutrons and muons that allow scientists to study materials at the atomic level using a suite of instruments, often described as 'super-microscopes'.  Till March, 2021, 104 Scientists and their PhD students have visited RAL facility and have 20 Joint Publications in leading journals. The STFC is keen to collaborate further for 5 years more and are currently engaged with their Indian Counterparts in developing a Detailed  Project  Report  for  submitting  the  same  soon  to  DST  for  further processing.

Apart from these three International Collaborations, we also support Indian Scientists for using other beam-line facilities in France, South Korea etc, where they are allotted beam-time on a competitive basis by the facility managers.

(c) & (d) DST, DBT, MeitY, ICAR & ICMR have been continuously providing/ allocating funds to Nano S&T which are limited due to allocation to each body. In fact the output per Re spent is perhaps higher than many of the developed countries. The allocation of core grants to Autonomous Institutes of DST working in the area of Nano S&T has also increased over the last 3 years as is evident from the table below:

Allocation of grants to AIs during the last 2 years

(Rs in Lakh)

| S.NO   | INSTITUTE                                                                                        |   2019-2020 |   2020-2021 | % increase   |
|--------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|-------------|-------------|--------------|
| 1.     | INDIAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE CULTIVATION OF SCIENCE (IACS), KOLKATA                                |    11684.7  |       12763 | 9            |
| 2.     | CENTRE FOR NANO AND SOFT MATTER SCIENCES, BENGALURU                                              |     1358.46 |        1374 | 2            |
| 3.     | INSTITUTE OF NANO SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (INST), MOHALI                                          |     2709    |        3189 | 17           |
| 4.     | INTERNATIONAL ADVANCED RESEARCH CENTRE FOR POWDER METALLURGY AND NEW MATERIALS (ARCI), HYDERABAD |     5201.13 |        6116 | 17           |
| 5.     | JAWAHARLAL NEHRU CENTRE FOR ADVANCED SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH, BENGALURU                              |    10928.2  |       10267 | --           |
| 6.     | S.N. BOSE NATIONAL CENTRE FOR BASIC SCIENCES (SNB), KOLKATA                                      |     3438.64 |        4469 | 29           |
|        |                                                                                                  |    35320.1  |       38178 | 8            |

The  conversion  of  Nano  Mission  into  a  regular  scheme  has  been recommended by the Third Party Evaluation Committee that evaluated all Schemes of DST, since work in this inter-disciplinary area is/ has opened up several avenues right from Novel Nano Materials with variable parameters for use in Automobiles/ Aircrafts etc. for lighter weight to Nano Electronic based devices, Nano Pharmaceuticals for Health Care to Nano - Agro Food with high nutritional value and Nano based security devices.

Further,  it  is  becoming  difficult  to  undertake  such  Applied  and Translational  R&D  in  Nano  S&T  area,  for  technology  development  for societal  benefit.  Therefore,  the  need  for  providing  sustained  and  more support in this sector would surely make the area attractive for R&D and sustainable in the long-run. This needs to be executed through a coordinated way  with  close  dialogue  with  the  other  User  Ministry/  Department/  S&T funding body in a meaningful way. This may open means for suitable funding to  Nano  S&T,  if  done  in  a  proper  coordinated  way,  to  avoid  duplicities/ redundancies in funding.

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