Hyderabad: The Research and Innovation Centre of Hyderabad (RICH), announced by the TS industries department to promote interaction between research institutions, educational institutions and the industry, has failed to take off even after a year.
RICH was announced by Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao in June 2015, while launching the state government’s new industrial policy “TS-iPASS”, the single window online approval system for industries. The government had promised to allot Rs 100 crore to RICH at that time, but allotted just Rs 5 crore in the Budget this year.
With this, venture capitalists and angel investors are not coming forward to pump funds into RICH, making it non-operational. The aim was to integrate top-notch city-based research institutions like ICRISAT, CRIDA, CCMB etc. with industry and educational institutions to achieve better results, besides making students employable by providing required skills as part of their academics.
However, a meagre Rs 5 crore was sanctioned for the initiative in the 2016-17 Budget. This discouraged venture capitalists and angel investors, who pointed out that despite top-notch research institutions in the city coming out with cutting-edge technologies and innovations, they were not directly benefitting industries, educational institutions or students as no efforts were made to make available these innovations to these sections.
RICH was conceived as a platform for mutual benefit of all, with the aim of bridging this gap. An official of industries department said though the government has been approaching them, there has been lukewarm response due to the meagre funds allotted by the TS government for the innovative project.He said the department has taken up the issue with the government for sanctioning additional funds at the earliest to bring the project back on track.
