EPFO APFC 2023 General Studies · Question 60 of 120

Correct — D, (d) 1, 2, 3 and 4. All four items are objectives of the Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council, so none can be excluded. BIRAC is a not-for-profit company set up in 2012 by the Department of Biotechnology, in the Ministry of Science and Technology, and registered under the section of the companies law that governs companies formed for a charitable or public purpose. Its role is described as that of an interface agency: it stands between publicly funded research and the biotechnology industry, and it exists to strengthen and empower emerging biotechnology enterprises so that they can undertake strategic research and innovation on product development needs of national relevance. Every one of the four statements is a facet of that role. Statement 1 — fostering innovation and entrepreneurship — is the headline objective, and it is what the organisation's funding instruments are for. The Biotechnology Ignition Grant supports an idea at the stage before a company can raise money on it; the Small Business Innovation Research Initiative and the Biotechnology Industry Partnership Programme fund small firms and industry-academia partnerships at later stages. Statement 2 — promoting affordable innovations in key social sectors — is a stated priority rather than an incidental effect. BIRAC's mandate directs it at products relevant to societal needs, which is why its portfolio runs to low-cost diagnostics, vaccines, medical devices, agricultural and clean-energy applications, and to programmes aimed specifically at affordable products for health and rural needs. Statement 3 — empowering start-ups and small and medium enterprises — is the population it was created to serve. Its bio-incubation network exists to give a small firm laboratory space, equipment and mentoring that it could not otherwise afford, and its grants are directed at enterprises too small or too early to attract commercial capital. Statement 4 — encouraging young investigators for entrepreneurial and managerial development in small and medium enterprises in biotechnology — is the human-capital side of the same mandate, and BIRAC runs programmes aimed at student innovators and early-career researchers who wish to take a discovery into a business. A scientist who has never run a company needs managerial development as much as money, and building that capacity is part of the stated purpose. Since nothing in the list is alien to the organisation, the answer takes all four.

• (a)1, 2 and 3 only — This accepts three genuine objectives and drops the fourth, which is the one about encouraging young investigators towards entrepreneurial and managerial development in small and medium biotechnology enterprises. It is dropped because it sounds like an education or skilling function rather than a research-funding one, and because it is the longest and most specific item in the list. Both intuitions are unreliable here. BIRAC's stated purpose includes building the entrepreneurial capacity of researchers, not merely funding their projects, and it runs programmes directed at student innovators and early-career scientists precisely to convert academic work into enterprises. Specificity is not evidence that an item has been invented; official statements of objectives are often written in exactly this long form.
• (b)1 and 4 only — This keeps the two items about innovation and about young investigators and drops the two about affordable social-sector innovation and about start-ups and small and medium enterprises — which happen to be the two most central to what the organisation does. Affordability in key social sectors is a stated priority of the mandate, not an occasional theme, and it is why BIRAC's supported portfolio is dominated by low-cost health, agriculture and clean-technology products. Start-ups and small firms are the constituency the body was created for; its incubation network and its early-stage grants exist because those firms cannot raise commercial capital at the stage where they need it. An option that discards both has discarded the substance of the organisation.
• (c)2, 3 and 4 only — This drops the first item, the fostering of innovation and entrepreneurship, which is the broadest and most fundamental of the four. A candidate reaches this option by treating the general statement as a piece of filler placed there to be rejected while the specific ones are real — an instinct that is sometimes right on statement sets but is wrong here, because fostering innovation and entrepreneurship is precisely how the body describes its purpose and is the common thread through every instrument it operates, from ignition grants to partnership programmes to incubators. The correct method on an objectives item is to test each statement against what is known of the organisation, rather than to assume that a list of four plausible items must contain one impostor.

The Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council was established in 2012 by the Department of Biotechnology, under the Ministry of Science and Technology, as a not-for-profit company registered under the provision of the companies law meant for organisations formed to promote a public object rather than to distribute profit. It was created to solve a specific problem: India's publicly funded biotechnology research was producing discoveries that were not becoming products, because the stage between a laboratory result and a marketable article is the stage at which neither research grants nor commercial investors are willing to pay. BIRAC occupies that gap as an interface agency between public research and industry, and its instruments are graded to the stage of the enterprise. Ignition grants fund an idea before there is a company; small-business innovation funding and industry partnership programmes support firms that have a product to develop; and a national network of bio-incubators supplies laboratory space, equipment, regulatory guidance and mentoring, which are as scarce as money for a small biotechnology firm. Alongside the money, the organisation runs programmes to build entrepreneurial and managerial capacity among young researchers, on the reasoning that a scientist who has never run a business will not succeed on funding alone. Its stated priorities point the whole apparatus at affordable products in socially important sectors — diagnostics, vaccines, medical devices, agriculture and clean energy — so that the innovation it supports is relevant to Indian conditions and prices. BIRAC sits in a wider policy setting that a candidate should be able to place it in, alongside the Start-up India and Make in India programmes, the Atal Innovation Mission, and the Department of Biotechnology's own research institutions.

The governance block of this paper regularly asks a candidate to recognise what a named Government body or scheme is for, and the items are drawn from bodies that are prominent in official communication rather than obscure ones. That makes the preparation tractable: a list of the main mission-mode agencies and flagship schemes, each with its parent ministry, its year of creation and the problem it was created to solve, answers most of what can be set. This item is built in the four-statement form with a code, and every one of the statements is drawn from the organisation's own account of its objectives, which is a construction that punishes a candidate who tries to reason about which item sounds least likely rather than recalling what the body does. Note the printing: the item lists four numbered objectives, each on its own line, with the instruction to select the answer from the code printed separately, and the word biotechnology in the fourth item is broken across a line in the booklet as bio-technology and is joined here.

• BIRAC — the Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council — was set up in 2012 by the Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology, as a not-for-profit company under the companies law provision for non-profit objects.
• It is described as an interface agency between publicly funded research and the biotechnology industry, created to strengthen and empower emerging biotechnology enterprises to undertake strategic research and innovation on nationally relevant product development needs.
• Its stated objectives include fostering innovation and entrepreneurship, promoting affordable innovation in key social sectors, empowering start-ups and small and medium enterprises, and building entrepreneurial and managerial capacity among young investigators.
• The Biotechnology Ignition Grant funds ideas at the pre-company stage; the Small Business Innovation Research Initiative and the Biotechnology Industry Partnership Programme fund small firms and industry-academia partnerships.
• Its bio-incubation network gives small firms laboratory space, equipment, mentoring and regulatory guidance that they could not otherwise afford.
• Its priority sectors are those where affordability matters most — diagnostics, vaccines, medical devices, agriculture and clean energy.
• The Department of Biotechnology, which set it up, is a department of the Ministry of Science and Technology, alongside the Department of Science and Technology and the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research.

• Rejecting the longest and most specific statement on the assumption that it must be invented; official statements of objectives are frequently written in that form
• Rejecting the broadest statement on the assumption that it is filler; fostering innovation and entrepreneurship is the organisation's own headline description of itself
• Confusing BIRAC with the Department of Biotechnology itself — the Department funds and directs research, while BIRAC is the interface company that supports enterprises
• Placing it under the wrong ministry; the Department of Biotechnology belongs to the Ministry of Science and Technology
• Assuming that a body funding industry cannot also have a social-sector mandate; affordability in key social sectors is written into its stated priorities

Schemes and institutions appear in this paper either as a single-line identification item, naming a programme and asking what it does, or as a numbered list of objectives with a code, as here. Expect the statements to be taken from the body's own published description, and expect the discrimination to be recall rather than reasoning. The efficient preparation is one line per body — parent ministry, year, purpose, flagship instrument — for the agencies that appear regularly in Government communication.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC) functions under which one of the following?

  • (a)The Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology
  • (b)The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare
  • (c)NITI Aayog
  • (d)The Ministry of Commerce and Industry

  Answer(a) The Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology — BIRAC was set up by that Department in 2012 as a not-for-profit interface agency between publicly funded biotechnology research and industry. The health ministry runs the public health system, NITI Aayog is an advisory body, and the commerce ministry handles trade and industrial policy.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Biotechnology Ignition Grant administered by BIRAC is intended primarily to support

  • (a)large pharmaceutical companies expanding production capacity
  • (b)an idea at the early stage, before it can attract commercial investment
  • (c)the import of laboratory equipment by universities
  • (d)the construction of hospital infrastructure in rural districts

  Answer(b) an idea at the early stage, before it can attract commercial investment — the grant addresses the gap between a laboratory result and a fundable venture, which is the point at which neither research grants nor investors will pay. BIRAC's other instruments take over later, funding small firms and industry-academia partnerships and providing incubation space.