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Task force on knowledge ready with its report

G. Srinivasan

NEW DELHI, July 25

A HIGH-LEVEL task force set up by the Planning Commission for suggesting measures to usher in a knowledge-based society leveraging India's vast fund of ancient knowledge and software superiority would submit its report to the Prime Minister shortly.

Official sources told Business Line here that the task force headed by the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, Mr. K.C. Pant, was inspired by the Prime Minister, Mr A.B. Vajpayee, who said that a knowledge-based society would enable India to leap frog in devising new and innovative ways to cope with the challenges of building a just and equitable social order.

The five-point agenda on which the task force has been working include, among others, education for developing a learning society, global networking, vibrant Government-industry-academia interaction in policy-making and implementation, leveraging extant competence in information technology (IT), telecom, bio-technology, drug design, financial services and enterprise-wide management and economic and business strategic alliances built on capabilities and opportunities.

In a novel recommendation, the task force has favoured the setting up of an `Education Development Finance Corporation' (EDFC) for needy and deserving students. The proposed EDFC would be a major input in the burgeoning sphere of education in the knowled ge society, the sources said.

The members of the task force include distinguished scientists such as Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India, Prof R.A. Mashelkar, Director, CSIR, educationist Dr K. Venkatasubramanian, who is the Convenor of the task force.

The sources said that some principal features of the knowledge society as identified by the task force include rapid changes in technology, greater investment in R and D, greater use of information and communication technology, increased networking and e scalating skill requirements.

This is in sharp contrast to the earlier societies such as the agricultural society and industrial society. In the emerging knowledge society, as much as, if not more than land, labour and capital, knowledge is the key to creating wealth and improving th e quality of life.

The sources said that the task force has underlined the need for a time-bound project focusing on exploiting knowledge for future prosperity and well-being. ``Rather than projecting into the future with assumptions about how today works, the projects sho uld involve constructing a vision of a most desirable future, and then identifying strategies to reach there,'' the task force is understood to have suggested.

It is further stated that the task force might persuade the Government's science and technology departments to think of ``science envelope goals'' embracing innovation, economics, environment and social science which are inter-related for making India a knowledge society.

The objectives might include planning and strategy to (i) provide a uniform set of directions across the science envelope, enabling elements of work carried out under different sources of funding to be combined in coherent research portfolios and (ii) ac t as an anchor point for the performance expectations designed to assess the efficacy of investments in science and technology.

In order to focus the development of knowledge society in India, the Government should ensure that infrastructure development for knowledge dissemination should be accorded top priority which would serve the public interest focus on human communication a nd provide universal access to information, the sources noted.

When contacted about the policy prescriptions of the task force, the Member, Planning Commission, Dr. K. Venkatasubramanian, refused to divulge details but hastened to add that ``India was a knowledge force in the ancient days and the effort is to restor e again this stellar status to Bharat today.''