The Rajiv Kher Task Force, which submitted its report recently, has asked the government to take initiative to attract new talents to chemistry, biology and law as these areas have become an unattractive destination at present.

"An integrated postgraduate course in chemistry could be offered in NITs, IITs, NIPER, and leading universities at the 10+2 level. Most bright students prefer engineering streams. Pure science in local colleges has become an unattractive destination. While chemistry is fancied to some extent, biology has much less attraction. Integrated courses in biology could be introduced at leading institutes focusing on microbiology, biotechnology and pharmacy. The quality of education in some of the private institutions offering these courses requires in-depth examination," the report said.

The task force asked the government to introduce integrated courses in law and life sciences in premier law schools and universities. A legal frame-work should be developed for tapping and developing the student potential while employing them for project works. However, as industry is not willing to offer projects in view of confidentiality issues, the legal framework should provide for confidentiality agreements by students and professors of universities, it said.

The confidentiality agreement should carry particulars such as passport details, permanent address of the student, etc to trace them in the event of violations of such confidentiality agreements. Further, government should also make it mandatory for University Professors to produce a minimum number of projects/research works each year. Patentable research should drive these institutions and universities. Increments and promotions may be linked to the research output and industrially commercialisable projects undertaken by their students/departments. Grants etc. could be linked to the requirements of projects in terms of equipments/space rather than mere capacity expansion etc, the task forces in its report said.

The, Rajiv Kher Task Force was constituted by prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh way back in July 2006 to find ways and means to ease the bottlenecks coming in the way of pharmaceutical exporters in the country. Its key recommendations included comprehensive measures for accelerating the growth of generic pharmaceutical industry in the country, enhancing India's R&D, promoting contract manufacturing, drug discovery & clinical trials, Indian System of Medicines & Ayush.

The task force, headed by Rajiv Kher, joint secretary in the union ministry of commerce, had held several rounds of meetings with all the stakeholders including the pharma industry and the officials before finalising its findings. The task force exclusively on pharma exports was constituted in the wake of the pharma industry making strides in the country during the last some years. There has been an increasing activity in the pharma export front as it has grown by leaps and bounds, especially during the last some years. Today the pharma sector alone contributes about five per cent of the total exports of the country.