The Department of Science & Technology (DST) has launched Sophisticated Analytical & Technical Help Institutes (SATHI) to address the need for developing shared, professionally managed and strong science and technology infrastructure in the country which is accessible to academia, startups and research and development (R&D) labs.

In her Budget speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had talked about the importance of such centres.

“Intellectual property creation and protection will play an important role. Knowledge translation clusters will be set up across different technology sectors, including in new and emerging sectors for designing, fabrication and proof of concept and further scaling up technology clusters harbouring such testbeds and small scale manufacturing facilities would be established,” she said.

DST has already set up three such centres in the country, one each at IIT Kharagpur, IIT Delhi and Banaras Hindu University at a total cost of Rs 375 crore.

It is planning to set up five SATHI centres every year for the next four years.

Objectives of SATHI

SATHI will address the problems of accessibility, maintenance, redundancy and duplication of expensive equipment in our institutions, while reaching out to the less endowed organisations in need, such as MSMEs, startups and state universities.

These centres are expected to house major analytical instruments to provide common services of high-end analytical testing. These would be operated with a transparent, open access policy.

SATHI will have facilities for fabrication work, rapid prototyping, material testing, characterisation, new device fabrication, smart manufacturing and characterisation facilities, etc to attract and help R&D labs.

The aim is to provide professionally managed services with efficiency, accessibility and transparency of highest order under one roof to service the demands of industry, startups and academia.

This will also foster a strong culture of collaboration between institutions and across disciplines to take advantage of developments, innovations and expertise in diverse areas.

The facilities provided by SATHI may be utilised by any user / organisation on payment of nominal charges.

It will also train technicians for maintenance and operation of sophisticated scientific instruments.

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