Pitching for private sector in research and development sector, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday called for setting up publicly-owned and privately operated scientific laboratories.

“If we are to give meaning to our search for new frontiers in Indian science, then a much larger participation of the private sector is essential. We have to leverage the private sector’s strengths by creating high impact collaborations,” he said in New Delhi.

Speaking at a function to give away the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Awards, Singh favoured private enterprise partnering public S&T institutions in their translational and transformational efforts.

“Let them join hands with public institutions in creating new manufacturing strategies for both strategic and non- strategic applications. Let there be publicly-owned and privately operated world class R&D facilities,” he said.

Earlier, Singh gave away the coveted Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Awards for 2009 and 2010 to 20 young scientists.

Science and Technology Minister Prithviraj Chavan said that The Chatterjee Group has joined hands with the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) to set up a R&D facility at Okhla in New Delhi.

The facility, which extends services for the life sciences sector, is being run round-the-clock by The Chatterjee Group, he said.

“Publicly-owned and privately operated means that the private sector, which is the service provider, would ensure that the equipment is up all the time, that it is a services-driven company, there is a marketing component involved,” Chavan said.

He made it clear that the initiative does not mean venturing into contract research but only making available facilities for research wherein the user pays a certain amount for use of state-of-the-art equipment.

“We are trying to see which are those facilities which are very expensive for the private sector to invest but we need such facilities,” Chavan said.