The Science and Society Programme also identified role for voluntary agencies in the field of S&T for generating and demonstrating technologies to increase productivity in the professions of weaker sections of the society, for example in pottery, tanning and agriculture related activities.
Planning Commission Seminar on New Technologies held in 1986 helped in evolving a new mechanism called Science and Technology Advisory Committee (STAC), which placed DST in a nodal role for promoting S&T through various line Ministries.
