Indian Science Congress Postponed For The First Time In 100 Years; Know Why

By OB Bureau On Jan 3, 2024

New Delhi: The Indian Science Congress, which is traditionally held on January 3 for the past 100 years has been postponed, with no decision yet to hold it at a later date. It is a showpiece event to highlight Indian science, with the Prime Minister attending the inaugural event.

The Congress could not be held in 2021 and 2022 due to the COVID pandemic.

This year’s break has raised question marks over the continuance of the event. The break is a direct result of a tiff between the Indian Science Congress Association (ISCA), a registered society that organises the event, and the Department of Science and Technology (DST), its main funder. In September last year, the DST withdrew its funding support to ISCA citing “financial irregularities”, a charge that ISCA rejected. ISCA went to court against the DST directive not to use government funds to meet any expenditure related to Science Congress, which created more bad blood between the two. The court case has not yet been decided, The Indian Express reported.

Ranjit Kumar Verma, general secretary of ISCA, was quoted as saying it was unfortunate that the event was not being held on time but said this was not the end of the Science Congress. “We will hopefully be able to organise the Science Congress before March 31 and we are hopeful that the Prime Minister will attend the event,” he added.

A government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, also did not rule out the resumption of financial support to the Science Congress. “There was a disagreement over the funding for this year’s event, but this does not mean that there would be no support for all future events. Discussions for collaboration will continue for the Science Congress scheduled for 2025,” he was quoted as saying by TIE.

The Rs 5 crore funding that DST provides takes care of the bulk of the expenditure incurred on the Science Congress. ISCA receives money from some other government organisations engaged in the promotion of science, and also raises some money through subscriptions from its members but that is not a substantial amount.

Choice of venue

The ISCA decided to shift the venue from Lucknow University to Lovely Professional University (LPU) due to shortage of funds in the hope that the private university in Punjab would be able to share some of the expenditure. LPU had hosted the 106th Science Congress as well in 2019. The DST, it is said, was not very happy with the venue. The ISCA insisted that its executive committee never needed DST permission to decide on the venue, and that a DST representative was present in the meeting that had finalised the venue.

Interestingly, the LPU, which had offered to host the event when an alternative venue was being searched, itself dropped out last month, barely two weeks before the event, the report added.