The Government plans to involve the private sector in a big way in R&D, especially in the field of vaccines, drugs and pharmaceuticals, super computing, solar energy and electronic hardware.

“A public-private partnership (PPP) fund of Rs 5,000 crore is being set up to support research and development efforts as well as commercialisation of products and services”, Mr Ashwani Kumar, Minister of State for Science & Technology, told Business Line .

Stressing the need for closer Government-industry interface, Mr Kumar said the share of private sector spending on R&D in India was inadequate, at only 0.24 per cent of GDP, compared with other emerging economies where this comes to 1.2 to 1.8 per cent of GDP.

“Countries such as Japan spend a good 3.5 per cent of GDP on R&D.”

Mr Kumar said a Government-industry committee was being set up to work out ways to enhance private engagement in India's R&D efforts. “Globally, our strength in manufacturing generic drugs is recognised. But we need to get into newer areas, such as innovation, to emerge as a truly global power”, he said.

Private participation

The Minister said the private sector is keen on partnering the Government in these efforts.

Also, there are plans to generate at least 2,500 high-value employment annually for R&D professionals, mainly in the private sector, to encourage youth to take up the science stream, Mr Kumar added.

This is also in line with the Prime Minister's recent call to encourage innovation, both ‘frugal' and ‘futuristic'.

Towards this, 14 innovation universities will be set up during the 12th Plan period.

“Our country is good in frugal innovation, such as the Jaipur foot and drip irrigation in Maharashtra. We will also be making our own 70-seater civil aviation aircraft by 2016, with a corpus of Rs 5,000 crore. But, overall we need to enhance private investment in R&D to play a bigger role in the world economy,” Mr Kumar added.

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