Hyderabad first city to launch Science and Technology's Mega Cluster

Hyderabad: Hyderabad has become the first city to roll out the Government of India-backed Science and Technology Mega Cluster. The Cluster was launched by Minister for IT and Industries K T Rama Rao. This is one of the four cities chosen by the Centre under the Prime Minister's Science, Technology and Innovation Advisory Council (PM-STIAC) to facilitate nationwide scientific collaboration.

The city cluster aims to improve overall outcomes for science, technology and innovation in the country. This cluster will be led by the Research and Innovation Circle of Hyderabad (RICH), a Government of Telangana initiative.

The Hyderabad Cluster, driven by RICH, will help in taking lab-based invention to the field level to bring change in the lives of the citizens, said KTR. The state government, he said, was looking to help launch at least 5 large impactful companies over a period of next 5 to 7 years, which will benefit millions, generate wealth, and create over 100,000 jobs across the country. "In the long term, our goal is to make Telangana the best Centre of Excellence for Life Sciences, Agriculture and Digital Technology," he said.

KTR further said, RICH has been created as a collaborative effort to bring all the stakeholders on to one platform. The State has over 60 R&D labs (including government and private sector) creating a vibrant ecosystem. The State's focus on innovation has been broad-based covering students, rural population, farmers and women, besides industry and academia."

Telangana's pharma companies are today leading the national effort in developing drugs and vaccines for human good. Hyderabad is the vaccine capital and contributes one-thirds of the global human vaccines. Agriculture companies in the State are the largest providers of seeds nationally.

Principal Secretary IT, Jayesh Ranjan said, "We introduced the concept of RICH because we realised that we have an array of R&D institutions located in Hyderabad, which are the best in the world, to ensure that the industry benefits from the presence of these institutions. In the last four years, RICH has been able to bring together the interests of the R&D institutions, industry, startups and the government. The Hyderabad Cluster will enable RICH to take part in international projects and collaborations among all the key stakeholders, he said.

Ajit Rangnekar, director-general of RICH, said, "Hyderabad has already fully internalised the concept of multi-disciplinary cluster. RICH, which has initiated several efforts towards research and innovation, is ready to initiate the works on the Science and Technology Hyderabad Cluster."