The Union government has sanctioned Rs 1000 crore for nanotechnology initiatives in Karnataka. The first instalment of Rs. 100 crore has been disbursed to set up India's first Nanotechnology Park in Bangalore. The government of Karnataka has officially taken position of the land located off the Magadi-Tumkur Road, in the outskirts of Bangalore to set up the Nano Park.

The Park will take a period of three years to be commissioned. It will have a full-fledged institute that will focus on research and training.

Although Nanotechnology initiatives have taken off in the country at research institutes and academia engaged in concrete efforts along with commercialisation of the technology to a certain extent by the industry, Karnataka has been short-listed for the Nano Park because of the projects by the research centres in the State like Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research Centre, Indian Institute of Science and the National Centre for Biological Sciences, said MN Vidyashankar, secretary, department of biotechnology and Science and technology, Karnataka.

So far, the Union government has provided only Rs. 120 crore for science and technology segment. The Rs.1,000 crore grant by the Centre only for nanotechnology efforts will provide a fillip to the growth of this segment. India has a huge potential to market nanotech products. Investments in nanotechnology can catalyse its development in pharma, medicine and chemical fronts, stated Prof. CNR Rao, national research professor, chairman, science advisory council to the Prime Minister and Honorary President, JNCASR.

Nanotechnology and biotechnology have created an opportunity for the innovative development of medical advances. It offers cheaper and faster medical diagnosis, new therapeutics and novel methods of drug delivery with many of these technologies currently in preclinical or clinical development.

Among the companies engaged in nanotechnology are Reliance Industries, Biocon, Quantum Dot, Nano Excel Enterprises, Omniscient Electronics, to name a few.

Globally, US and Japan have made major inroads in nanotechnology, but compared to China the tow countries are far behind in terms of manpower and money invested in the sector. However India has caught the bus on time and is not late in the business, stated Prof. Rao.

Going by the capability of the Indian pharmaceutical sector performance and the efforts to absorb nanotechnology we have a lot of scope in competitive areas like cancer therapy, diagnostics of neural disorders like Alzheimer's and dementia. The country has the ability to develop and manufacture sensors which can be used in MRI technology.

Honeywell is gearing up to set up a Nano Sensor Centre in Bangalore. "Instead of the US bigwigs capitalizing the best of brain power from India for nanotechnology, we need to take on the onus to enter into advanced research and commercialisation of nanotechnology which is possible in nano-medicine and nano-diagnostics," stated Prof Rao.

The global market size for nanotechnology is valued at $8-10billion and India share is miniscule. However, India has the potential to grow with the initiatives in nano-diagnostics.

In the area of manpower, efforts are on to attract the school and college students towards nanotechnology. We need to train people in nanotechnology research and manufacture to exploit the advantage, he said.

While nanotechnology is still nascent in India, it is crucial to involve venture capitalists in the sector. This is because nano ventures would not have taken off in the US but for the support from VC funding, added Prof. Rao.