Issues attached :
- As a proportion of GDP expenditure on Science and Tech has been stagnated. It is between 0.6-0.7% of GDP over the past two decades.
- Expenditure is skewed in favour of Atomic energy, space, earth science , Biotechnology and the expenditure on ICMR is on decline.
- As compared to its peer competitors, India’s spending on R&D is well below that in major nation such as US, CHINA, Israel and Korea.
- In India Government is not just the primary source of R&D funding but also it’s the primary user of these funds. Even more, government expenditure on R&D is undertaken almost entirely by the central government.
- Private Investment in research have severely lagged public investment in India.
- India’s universities play a relatively small role in the research activities of the country
- Most other countries, especially east Asian countries like China, Japan and Korea have been dramatic increase in R&D as a percentage of GDP as they have become richer. India, on the other hand, has only seen a slight increase.