India’s one of the most important Scientific research council, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), is still a headless body. The government of India has not found anyone to head the council till date and the absence of the head of the council has hit the functioning of the council.
The Science and technology minister Kapil Sibal has also accepted that this was the result of government’s inability that the CSIR has been headless for eight months.
During his address at the function on CSIR’s foundation, Sibbal blamed the lethargic bureaucracy, scientists and politicians for the delay on deciding the next head of CSIR. The CSIR has been headless since RA Mashelkar took retirement from the post of director-general CSIR.
The Science and technology secretary T Ramasamy has taken the charge of the CSIR as Director General of the council.
According to the rule, the PM’s scientific adviser refers the names to the Union government and the government appoints one person from the list of probables as the CSIR chief. According to reports, there were many differences picked up in the PM’s scientific advisory council on the names came up for the consideration last time.
Sibal said:
A ponderous bureaucratic machinery is to be blamed. Politicians and scientists should also share responsibility. A headless CSIR is suffering. Now, the appointment would be done soon.
The government had selected the name of V Prakash, director of the Mysore-based Central Food Technological Research Institute as the news CSIR chief from a list of three probable names. But, he could not join as the CSIR DG because of some health reasons. Now, the government has started the recruitment process afresh to find another scientist to head the CSIR.
