Thiruvananthapuram: After being allegedly instrumental in a number of controversial issues pertaining to the Science and Technology sector of the state, Kerala chief minister's daughter V V Asha has landed herself in another controversy with the State Government deciding to grant Rs 35 lakh to her for a research project.
The money has been granted under the Marine Biotechnology Research Programme of the Kerala Biotechnology Mission (KBC), a wing of the Kerala State Council for Science, Technology and Environment (KSCSTE ) of which Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan is the president.
The decision to give the money to CM's daughter has drawn flak from several quarters as she has no prior expertise in the area of marine biotechnology.
Asha is a scientist at the Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology (RGCB) and the institute has confirmed that they have not done any work related to marine biotechnology.
When a task force is created for a research programme, the members who are assigned projects should have either worked in the area or should have published research papers in high impact journals on the topic. Asha has done neither of these.
Sources said that the project proposal submitted by Asha was not properly evaluated or peer-reviewed by a three-member committee and that the KSCSTE officials were being pressurised to approve the project and release the money.
Sources said that Achuthanandan could be in the dark about these tactics employed by KSCSTE executive vicepresident E P Yesodharan to please his daughter.
When contacted by `Express' a few months ago, Yesodharan had been very reluctant to give the details of the projects that were approved by the KBC expert committee.
When Asha's project proposal was screened by National Institute of Oceanography former deputy director D Chandramohan, he is said to have commented that experts from the area of medicine and chemistry should be included in the project.
Hence, Dr Shankar S, Pathology department head of Trivandrum Medical College, and Dr S.Prathapan, reader in the Department of Chemistry at CUSAT, were included as participating scientists. Yet, neither of these scientists nor their respective institution head have signed the project proposal.
The title of the project `Bioprospecting of marine algae for various pharmacological activities' was also vague enough to negate the basic objective of the Biotechnology Commission which was to develop specific products in a time-bound manner through biotechnology, be it in health, agriculture or marine sciences.
Later on, the title was changed to a more specific one - `Bioprospecting of marine algae for specific anticancer compound'.
The budget component was also cut down from Rs 37 lakh to Rs 35 lakh.
RGCB director M Radhakrishna Pillai has certified that basic facilities for the project are available at the Centre. The grounds on which he has stated this are also questionable as marine algae culture and isolation requires expertise on salinity tolerant systems and key buffering media components.
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