More on Covid-19

NEW DELHI: Union science and technology ministry on Friday approved setting up of an exclusive body - Centre for Augmenting War with COVID-19 Health Crisis’ (CAWACH) - at a total cost of Rs 56 crore to scout, evaluate and support innovations and start-ups that address COVID-19 challenges. Focus of the body would be to come out with deployable innovations within six months.The Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SINE), a technology business incubator at IIT Bombay , has been identified as implementing agency of the CAWACH.“The CAWACH’s mandate will be to extend timely support to potential start-ups by way of requisite financial assistance and fund deployment, targeting innovations that are deployable in the market within next six months,” said science and technology ministry in a statement.It said, “The CAWACH will identify upto 50 innovations and start-ups that are in the area of novel, low cost, safe and effective ventilators, respiratory aids, protective gears, novel solutions for sanitizers, disinfectants, diagnostics, therapeutics, informatics and any effective interventions to control COVID-19.”Underlining importance of this effort, secretary in department of science and technology (DST) of the ministry, Ashutosh Sharma , said the programme was focused on leveraging intelligence and extraordinary innovative potential of technology incubators and start-ups and empowering them to speedily address the multi-dimensional challenges of COVID-19.“The CAWACH will provide access to pan India networks for testing, trial and market deployment of these products and solutions in the identified areas of priority COVID-19 solutions. This will help to address various challenges faced by country due to severe impact of Covid-19,” said the ministry.The support will be provided to start-ups at different stages for fast tracking commercialization process and journey and scale-up across India which will have significant impact in the long term.The programme is part of the DST’s effort to support R&D initiatives by boosting innovations and offering comprehensive solutions for control and mitigation of Covid-19.