New Delhi: Caught in inter-ministerial red tape, one of the RSS’ pet projects on scientific validation of products derived from cow may soon be expedited and put under direct supervision of the newly-created Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying headed by Union minister Giriraj Singh.
The government in 2017, under department of Science and Technology (DST), had constituted a National Steering Committee to initiate a National Program on “Scientific Validation and Research on Panchgavya” (SVAROP), which is a concoction prepared by mixing five ingredients — cow dung, urine, milk, curd and ghee. The ingredients are mixed in proper ratio for further fermentation.
News18.com has learnt that earlier efforts of forming a national steering committee headed by Union minister Harsh Vardhan has not given much results as there was shortage of funds. BJP’s ideological fountainhead, the RSS, is reportedly not been happy with the progress made in the project in the last two years.
The source said that earlier there were five ministries working on Project Panchgavya, which has not yielded satisfying results as only one ministry made financial contribution to the project.
Apart from DST, the other participants in the project of promoting research on panchgavya were ministry of new and renewable energy, environment forest and climate change, health and family welfare, and agriculture and farmer’s welfare.
The NSC also included RA Mashelkar, the former director-general (DG) of the CSIR; the Director generals of CSIR, ICAR, ICMR and the Central Council for Research in Ayurvedic Sciences (CCRAS) have also been involved. IIT-Delhi has been a key participant along with the Vijnana Bharati (RSS) and Go-Vigyan Anusandhan Kendra (GVAK), Nagpur.
“The funds came from DST but other ministries were not up to the mark in providing funds. The government has in front of it the proposal from stakeholders to start anew on the objective with the Ministry of Animal Husbandry and Dairying to work on the panchgavya project,” said the source familiar with the matter.
In the past, there were preliminary discussions and now it is for the government to decide. “Animal Husbandry under Giriraj Singh has the mandate and resources to wholeheartedly pursue the panchgavya project under one umbrella work can be done in pursuing our objective of building cow-based economy. There was status quo after the national steering committee was formed and five ministries got into it. No work was done to promote panchgavya, we need to work on a new alternative under the new ministry,” said the source.
Animal husbandry and dairying is being preferred as it has number of aligned institutions and centers on promoting cow-related projects.
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