The decennial review of the programme brought out the clearly felt need of strengthening programme based between DST & State S&T Councils and amongst themselves. The approach for programme based support was developed and crystallized during the Eighth Five Year Plan. Based on the ground work completed in the Eighth Five Year Plan and first two year of Ninth Five Year Plan, DST embarked upon a new initiative to support specific programmes aimed at socio economic development through S&T intervention to various states. With the beginning of programme support, all the objectives of the State S&T Councils programme were activated leading to a “Phase Change” and the programme under went major transformation.