Prime Minister Narendra Modi will chair a meeting of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research Society here on Saturday.

During a press conference, Science and Technology Minister Jitendra Singh said this is the third year of the CSIR Society and the meeting is of special significance as it marks 80 years of the establishment of the council.

About the agenda of the meeting, Singh said a presentation about the various activities of the CSIR would be made in front of the prime minister and his suggestions would be sought on the way forward.

The meeting would also see participation from Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, 13 secretaries of Union ministries, including all secretaries of science-based ministries.

CMDs of four public sector undertakings, NTPC, BHEL, GAIL and HAL, three industry leaders and 12 academia and scientific community members would also participate in the meeting.

N Kalaiselvi, Director-General of CSIR, highlighted the recent achievements and focus areas of the CSIR, including providing smart agriculture for farmers and providing technical solution to industries and extending support to MSMEs and start-ups.

"Now we are going to focus on two areas, we will be coming up with a call for proposals where we will be addressing industry-based problems and societal issues,” she said.

“Hereafter, every project will be conceived in the form of a technology. We will be roping in one or more industries from day one so that when the technology matures, the industry becomes our launch vehicle to implement it for societal application," she added.

Talking about how technology is used to benefit the society, Singh said a pilot project was conducted in Punjab, Haryana and Gujarat to use helicopter technology to ascertain the presence of groundwater at different points.

The project was conducted in collaboration with the Ministry of Jal Shakti.