Bangalore: Union Minister of State for Science and Technology Kapil Sibal today (Oct 21, 2004) said Government would unveil its national Biotechnology Policy by Jan 2005 and indicated that it would enter into joint venture partnerships with entrepreneurs in the Biotech industry to give them the necessary impetus.

The policy will address the need to "add value to human resources" in a big way as though India is known as an HR hub, huge investments in the area of education is the need of the hour, he told reporters in Bangalore.

"We need to have at least 20 Indian Institute of Sciences (IISc) and such institutions to impart in-depth knowledge and scope for R and D in science and technology", Sibal said.

The policy, the "first of its kind will be based on a public-private partnership model". It will be a "four-way partnership involving the entrepreneur, the academia, the laboratories and the State", he said.

Instead of having a corpus fund for Biotechnology development, which is a "little difficult", the Government will enter into a joint venture with such enterprises whereby the industry will be imparted knowledge and technology free of cost while the Government will have a stake in it, he told reporters.

However, "there is an element of risk involved in this, which is worth taking", he said, adding such partnerships or "Business Incubation Centres" have been very successful in Israel and the United States.