Over the past 50 years a large indigenous Science & Technology (S&T) know-how has been generated in various national laboratories and in parallel, several technologies have been imported.  Urban sector has received the highest attention by way of deployment of large number of these technologies and know-how in urban areas resulting in rapid urban development leading to urban rural divide in terms of prosperity and opportunities.  Further, India’s young population is expected to be the largest in the world in decades ahead, over 500 millions. Creating gainful and productive work for them is the greatest challenge.  Technical know-how generated in national laboratories related to basic needs such as water, food, energy and environment has been underutilized.  Deployment and adaptation of this know-how to the rural needs could provide a creative opportunity for expected 500 million youths in rural and urban India to contribute to the national wealth with prosperity for everybody including villages.

Organisations nurturing know-how for water management, land utilization and energy production and conservation, all done in an environment friendly manner are the key drivers of emerging global economy.  All these four factors viz. water, land, energy and environment are the lifeline for the rural economy where ~ 70% of Indian population resides contributing only ~ 30% to GDP.  Moreover good environment is an issue of great concern and worry for healthy existence of our present and future generations.

In a country of the vast size such as ours, technology innovations and adaptation has to be evolved in a greater measure particularly since such technology has to fit with varied local conditions and need to be applied quickly to enhance the quality of life of larger population.  Considering the wealth of technology and innovative capability generated in BARC & DAE units as an off-shoot of R&D in Nuclear Energy and its applications in power and non-power areas, Department has launched DAE – Societal Initiative for utilization of Non-Power Applications (NPAs) and Spinoff technologies (Spinoffs) in the area of water, land, agriculture, food processing and urban-rural waste management.  Within this framework of societal initiative, structured programme called “AKRUTI - KRUTIK - FORCE” has been formulated and is being implemented by BARC for techno-economic growth of the rural sector, as one of the many schemes for large-scale deployment of NPAs and Spinoffs.  This programme will enable to take the fruits of technology to grass-root level to every villager in the remote corner and provide inclusive growth to the rural sector and tap the hidden innovative capability of large rural population.