The idea is to entice the top 50 students at the secondary school examination and CBSE levels, familiarise them them with the workings of CSIR laboratories and provide monetary assistance and laboratory facilities to those who wish to pursue higher studies in science.

``We want to inspire in the students a spirit of adventure, excitement and fun science and research through individual assistance and support,'' said Union Science and Technology Minister Murli Manohar Joshi.

For the 50-year old CSIR, badly in need of some fresh blood, the scheme may be long overdue. The average age of the 23,500 employees spread over 40 laboratories across the country now stands at 49 years. Leading scientists acknowledge that the best work in the laboratories isdone by young researchers between the ages of 25 and 35 years.

With the job market skewed in favour of commerce and management studies graduates, even those students who opt for science at the degree level switch to management courses at the post-graduate level. As a result the best and the brightest are scorning the science streams, with the pure sciences not getting much of a pool of talent to choose from.

Announcing the CSIR Programme on Youth for Leadership in Science (CPYLS), Joshi said the scheme would encourage science students at the school final level to undertake their project work in a CSIR laboratory.

Students who score over 90 per cent in science subjects in the Senior Secondary Examination and opt for science at the degree level would be supported financially till graduation. Designated as ``CSIR Student Associates'', the selected students would be given the facility to work on a project in a CSIR laboratory during their vacations and paid adequately.

``We can even consider absorbingthem into the CSIR labs, once they complete their studies,'' said R A Mashelkar, Director-General, CSIR. Since the 40 CSIR laboratories are located all over the country, students from different areas would have access to one or more of these centres.

The CPYLS scheme will complement the Kishore Vigyanik Protsahan Yojana initiated recently by the Department of Science and Technology. ``With the global shift towards a knowledge-based society and economy, it has become necessary that the best Indian brains take up Science and Technology as an academic profession and perhaps research as a career,'' Joshi added.

The science and technology minister, who gave away this year's CSIR Young Scientist awards, also took the scientific community to task for the decline in the quality of research being done at Indian universities and technical institutions and the sharp fall in the number of international research publications.