Patna, Feb. 2: Bihar government today notified setting up of the State Innovation Council to be headed by chief minister Nitish Kumar.
The council would promote any kind of innovation concerning people.
It will have members from both the government and non-government sectors. The Telegraph had reported about the state government’s move to set up the council in March last year.
As far as government nominees are concerned, the council would have principal secretaries of agriculture, industry, education, health, social welfare, information technology, public health and engineering, science and technology, labour resource and water resources departments as its members.
There would be four non-government representatives and their selection has been done on the basis of performance in their respective fields of work.
“S.K. Guha, who works with the Institute of Medical Science at IIT-Kharagpur, B. Rajaram, the director of Konkan Railway and Leena Srivastava, the executive director of the Energy and Resources Institute, are the three of the four non-government members of the council,” planning and development department principal secretary Vijoy Prakash said.
The council would work under the planning and development department and its principal secretary would be the member secretary of the council.
Prakash added that the fourth non-government member of the council, Md. Saidullah, hails from Motihari. A school dropout, sexagenarian Saidullah has to his credit having invented a water bicycle, a manual water pump, a spring fan which runs for half-an-hour after one winding, among other things.
Having sold most of his property in Motihari town to pursue his passion of making innovative products, Saidullah was conferred with the lifetime achievement award by the National Innovation Foundation in 2005.
Prakash said the selection of the non-government members had been done on the basis of nomination.
The government departments made part of the council are those whose functioning is directly linked to the common people.
