Talking to newspersons after the conclusion of the third meeting of the Jai Vigyan national science and technology missions, Minister for Science and Technology and Human Resource Development Murli Manohar Joshi and Agriculture Minister Som Pal said that all these technology missions will have fixed tenure of three years and their respective performance would be reviewed after every three months. Out of 21 missions, the one on `gama sterilisation and diagnostic kits' was yet to be finalised, they said.

Dr Joshi said all the scientific organisations, including the Department of Space, Department of Electronics, Department of Atomic Research, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), will jointly be working for these technology missions under the banner of teamIndia.

These technology missions includes nuclear technology in medicine, development and production of new generation vaccines and diagnostics, biotechnological approaches towards herbal product development, setting up of the mirror site for genome research, establishment of the botanical garden at Noida, technology mission on indigenous medical equipment, employment and rehabilitation of visually handicapped persons and mission for Indian languages, ocean thermal energy development project, project on thalassemia and community control of rheumatic fever, mission for visually impaired, Himalayan geology, biodiversity characterisation in Andman and Nicobar islands using satellite remote sensing and geological information service have already been formulated, he informed.

Apart from this, one light transport aircraft project (Saras) was also taken up. This project is going very well, he said and added that its term would be over by December 31, this year. It would provide the blue print for a 20 to 30seater aircraft, he added. For speedy clearence customs, excise and other related areas, these projects would be treated under green channel.

Som Pal said the ICAR would be taking up a project on food and nutritional security which would focus on the tribal, backward and hilly areas. The main focus would be value addition to the crop species, particularly coarse cereals and pseudo cereals, enhancing the horticultural and vegetable production, improved post harvest technology and agricultural engineering for nutritional security.

He said under this project crops like soyabean, tropical fruits, vegetables and tuber crops would be given high priority and efforts would be made for improving the live stock productivity in the tribal, backward and hilly areas. Research would be carried out for reducing the caffeine content in coffee.