Established with the approval of the Union Cabinet, the Empowered Technology Group (ETG) aims to proactively lay down, coordinate, and oversee national-level policies relating to
Procurement and Induction of technologies
Research and Development (R&D) in technologies that require large outlays in resources, both financial and human
Render sound and timely advice for determining direction and trajectory of Government's R&D and Technology Development Programmes
To ensure India has pragmatic policies to facilitate utilisation of the latest technologies for economic growth and sustainable development.
Advise the Government on priorities and strategies for research on emerging technologies across sectors.
Maintain an updated map of technology and technology products available, and being developed, across India.
Develop an indigenization roadmap for selected key technologies.
Advise the Government on its technology supplier and procurement strategy.
Encourage both State & Central government to develop in-house expertise in policy and use aspects of emerging technologies.
Formulate policies for sustainability of public sector technology at PSUs/Labs
Encouraging cross-sector collaborations and research alliances with Universities and Private Companies.
Formulate standards and common vocabulary for vetting of proposals for R&D
Principal Scientific Adviser to Government of India
ETG will be supported by Technology Advisory Group (TAG) comprising 10 members from academia and 10 members from industry.
Scientific and line ministries
State governments
R&D labs
CPSEs
Industry
ETG is being supported by the Technology Advisory Group (TAG) comprising 9 members from Academia and 9 members from Industry and other important sectors.
The Office of PSA has been engaging with several ministries and departments to improve the policy landscape, to make it more inclusive and open. In this process, the office has consulted respective stakeholder groups for devising policy reforms for promoting innovation and tech transfer in the space sector, responsive regulatory processes in remote sensing, easy access to geospatial data, and others.
Concerned Ministry(ies)/Department(s): Department of Animal Husbandry & Dairying
The Office of PSA invited a Fellow with international experience to assist the DAHD to set up a blueprint for the National Digital Livestock Mission. This collaboration between DAHD and the Office of PSA resulted in a reimagined architecture for India’s livestock management. The NDLM is currently being rolled out by the department.
Concerned Ministry(ies)/Department(s): Ministry of Textile
PSA office has helped the Ministry of Textiles in drafting the cabinet note for the National Technical Textiles Mission (NTTM).
PSA office is now supporting the ministry in the selection of projects being undertaken as part of NTTM.
PSA Office is also supporting the mission by identifying opportunities in R&D, and commercialisation with users in Armed Services, Agriculture, and some industrial sectors.
Concerned Ministry(ies)/Department(s): Department of Space
The Office of PSA supported the design of the Indian space reforms with analytical studies, stakeholder consultation, and identification of reform pathways. These reforms were conceptualized and rolled out in 2020. Already, Indian startups and private companies have taken big strides in expanding and improving space-based services, including launching their satellites.
Concerned Ministry(ies)/Department(s): Department of Space
The ETG ensured that the Remote Sensing policy being developed by the Department of Space was in line with the Geospatial policy issued by the Department of Science and Technology.
Also, provisions for a responsive regulatory mechanism with strict timelines for processing applications and granting authorisation have been incorporated.
Concerned Ministry(ies)/Department(s): Department of Space
ETG guided the policy to be such that the cost of technology transfer is evaluated considering societal and economic benefits of the technology, the financial benefits to ISRO and that the costing of Intellectual Property (IP) does not delay the technology transfer process.
Concerned Ministry(ies)/Department(s): Department of Science & Technology
Based on the ETG recommendations, the Geospatial policy will be an enabler for economic activities using geospatial data. The policy has ensured minimal requirement of approvals since much of the geospatial data is currently easily available worldwide. Geospatial data and images are now available for all government ministries and to Indian-origin business entities at a fair price.
ETG secretariat is engaging with Technology Officers to support the adoption of technology in ministry’s functioning and service delivery. ETG secretariat has received a list of about 180+ problem statements across 35 departments and ministries. The secretariat has identified several potential partners for provisioning solutions to the line ministries/departments.
Concerned Ministry(ies)/Department(s): Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs
Procurement of innovative products that do not have competitors in the market becomes difficult in a tender-based regime. In many cases, products directly meeting a stated need cannot be procured due to this limitation. An experimental regime for such situations has been devised in the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, starting with the Smart Cities Mission. This system comprises a two-sided innovation discovery marketplace, CiX, and procurement guidelines called SmartProcure. The Smart Cities will be able to scope out potential technologies on the CiX platform, develop solutions collaboratively with startup companies, and provide orders through the SmartProcure guidelines.
The AGNIi mission will be assisting the Smart Cities Mission to support the cities in the uptake of the SmartProcure system, including designing some early projects.
Concerned Ministry(ies)/Department(s): Ministry of Power
ETG has been assisting various departments/ministries in developing, adapting, and procuring technologies, and related policies, for improved public services. As a part of technology intervention, SJVN Limited a Mini Ratna: Category-I and Schedule – ‘A’ Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSE) under the administrative control of the Ministry of Power, Govt. of India had outlined a few requirements in domain of Solar Energy.
As a result of the continuous engagement of ETG, AGNIi and SJVN a demo opportunity has been provided to Inoviea (a start-up providing waterless solar panel self-cleaning solution) at Charanka Solar Park on a 5.6 MW Solar Plant.
Concerned Ministry(ies)/Department(s): National Disaster Response Force
Extensive engagement is underway for upgrading Disaster response via Indian emerging technology, including
Concerned Ministry(ies)/Department(s): Border Security Force, Ministry of Home Affairs
Extensive engagement is underway for upgrading Border Security via Indian emerging technology, including
ETG has collaborated with GeM with an aim to promote easy and fast procurement of indigenously developed technologies churned out of the Public R&D ecosystem. In this regard, a training session for vendors was organized and a complete overview of the platform; comprising the entire process of vendor onboarding, buyer placing tender requests, participating in the bid, fulfilling the bids, and others, were provided to the vendors.
As per the latest dataset, out of 40 vendors who had participated in the training workshop, 33 have registered themselves on the platform and 21 products have been uploaded on the portal. A process of continuous interaction is in place for the vendors and an effort is made to address the problems encountered by the vendors while onboarding onto the GeM Platform.