Says grassroots innovators are India’s silent nation builders
NEW DELHI: The Minister of State (MoS) PMO Dr Jitendra Singh on Tuesday said that promoting ‘Grassroots Innovators’ can strengthen India’s rural economy and reduce regional imbalance through inclusive, innovation-led growth.
The Minister said, said grassroots innovators must become active stakeholders in India’s economic transformation, as their traditional knowledge, local skills and practical innovations hold immense potential for livelihood generation, decentralized growth and national development.
Addressing the inaugural session of the two-day National Workshop on “Grassroots Innovation Pathways: From Local Resilience to National Advancements” at Science City, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, Dr Jitendra Singh described grassroots innovators as India’s “silent nation builders” whose contributions often remain outside formal institutional systems despite their significant societal and economic value. He said innovation in India should not remain confined to metropolitan centres, laboratories or elite institutions, but must expand across villages, smaller towns and community ecosystems.
The workshop has been organised by NITI Aayog in collaboration with the National Innovation Foundation (NIF) and Gujarat Council of Science & Technology (GUJCOST).
Dr Jitendra Singh said India possesses a unique ability to innovate under resource constraints and that many transformative ideas emerge directly from lived experiences and local challenges. The Minister said many grassroots innovators may not possess formal academic qualifications, yet display remarkable creativity and technical aptitude rooted in practical experience.
Dr Jitendra Singh said grassroots innovation is fundamentally a bottom-up process and stressed the need to connect local innovators with scientific institutions, modern technology, validation systems and market opportunities. He said the challenge is not merely to identify innovators, but to create pathways for scaling their innovations into viable products and community solutions.
