The Times of India
Sep 04, 2016

Minister of electronics and information technology Ravishankar Prasad on Saturday inaugurated the half-finished Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) Innovation Park but refrained from giving any definite answer on when the funds for completing the new building would be released.

Both Prasad and Aruna Sundararajan, secretary , ministry of electronics and IT, said in their inaugural speech that the funds would be released, but did not specify when. Refering to the issue in her speech, Sundararajan said, “I have taken a note of it and I am sure that with the minister's support, it will be done within a short span of time.“

Prasad, on the other hand, spoke at length about encouraging Digital India and innovation, but did not mention funds in his speech. When asked about when funds for C-DAC can be expected, he saying, “It will be taken care of soon.“

While a total of Rs 120 crore has been approved for the new C-DAC building, the government has only provided Rs 32 crore of the whole amount so far. C-DAC used the Rs 36 core of their corpus funds meant for furthering their research, for building activities. This has also led to delays in activities and even postponing of many of their other projects.

“Lot of projects could not be taken up, a lot of work had to be prioritized for a variety of reasons. It is difficult to tell which projects were postponed. For example, the last super computer update was in the year 2013. In the last three years, supercomputers worldwide have changed a lot but we haven't been able to do anyt hing as we didn't have that kind of money ,“ Rajat Moona, director general, C-DAC said in a press conference on Friday .

Prasad touched upon the issue of promotion of scientists in his inaugral speech. “The promotion of scientists have been halted since 2010 will be expedited,“ he said. He also added that while the scientists' achievements will be appreciated publicly , they will be pulled up privately for their underachievement.

He also urged scientists to think out of the box. “Come out with more pro-people products. Who stops you from innovating? All innovations will be suitably awarded. E-Hastakshar and E-Basta are Ok but remember that it is just a beginning. Imagine, innovate, apply and give results. Once results start coming in, CDAC will soon become the key word for digitally driven India.“

C-DAC staff organized an art exhibition for the inaugration which was appreciated by the minister.