Two council bodies merge as part of flab-cutting exercise
in a move aimed at streamlining its organisations to increase efficiency, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (csir) has decided to merge the National Institute of Science Communication (niscom) and the Indian Scientific Documentation Centre (insdoc). This would reduce the number of csir institutions to 38.
"It is time to refocus on the relevance of an institution that was developed nearly 50 years ago," says R A Mashelkar, director general of csir. According to him, insdoc usually provides xerox copies of scientific papers, a process that is redundant since most journals are now accessible on the Internet. The merged organisation would be called the National Institute of Science Communication and Information Resources (niscar).
According to V K Gupta, director, niscom and insdoc, the merger is taking place to enhance resource utilisation. It was recommended by a committee headed by R Narasimha, director, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore. The csir initiative is part of a campaign to cut flab wherein the current employee strength in its institutes is being reduced by not filling slots after the tenure of staff members ends.
" csir has to function like a live organism which sheds old cells and regenerates new ones," says Mashelkar. "Each and every government institution needs to evolve with time," he feels.
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