India will lead in biotech if it maintains growth: CSIR

India would soon occupy the top position in the world in biotechnology if it maintained 40 per cent growth, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) Director General RA Mashelkar said.

India would soon occupy the top position in the world in biotechnology if it maintained 40 per cent growth, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) Director General RA Mashelkar said on Sunday.

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"As far as IT sector is concerned, the growth was touching all time high. However, it is the biotechnology sector which has begun to come out of the closet, recording an annual growth of 40 per cent for last three years," Mashelkar said while giving a broader view of the two-day conference, 'Hi-Tech Pune: Where IT meets BT', to be held from October 27.

The biotechnology sector's turnover in 2005 was $1.6 billion and India was placed number two among Asia-Pacific countries in the sector, he said, adding if the 40 per cent growth is maintained the sector, our country would soon occupy the top spot in the world.

There is a silent revolution taking place in biotechnology sector in Pune. Cyrus Poonawala's Serum Institute of India has recently displaced Bangalore-based company of Kiran Mazumdar to be number one biotech enterprise in the country, Mashelkar said.