Context-The Department of Science & Technology has launched a unique scheme called “Sophisticated Analytical & Technical Help Institutes(SATHI)”.

SATHI 

• Science and Technology infrastructure:Address the need for shared, professionally managed and strong Science and Technology infrastructure in the country which is easily accessible to academia, start-ups, manufacturing, industry and R&D labs.
• Efficient Use of Equipments:Address the problems of accessibility, maintenance, redundancy and duplication of expensive equipment in Institutions.
• Intellectual Property Rights :Address the issue of Intellectual property (IP) creation and protection, a digital platform will be created which will facilitate seamless application and capture IPRs (Intellectual Property Rights).
• Knowledge Translation Clusters:These 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.

Besides the SATHI initiative, extra funds to 100 top-performing departments in universities and IITs etc will be provided in 2020 for augmentation of their research facilities to global benchmarks.

• The research efforts of these supported departments will be in sync with the national priorities of excellence in manufacturing, waste processing, clean energy and water, and Start-up India, etc.

• SATHI aims to address the need for building shared, professionally managed and strong S&T infrastructure in the country which is readily accessible to academia, start-ups, manufacturing, industry and R&D labs etc.
• These Centres are expected to house major analytical instruments to provide common services of high-end analytical testing, thus avoiding duplication and reduced dependency on foreign sources.
• These would be operated with a transparent, open access policy.
• DST has already set up three such centres in the country, one each at IIT Kharagpur, IIT Delhi and BHU.