CHENNAI: Even as the government announced plans to set up a corpus of Rs 1 lakh crore to finance private sector research to spur innovation-led growth, the science and technology outlay for the major schemes have been under utilised in the current 2023-24 fiscal (FY24), as per the revised estimates.
Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday said the corpus will provide long-term financing or refinancing with low or zero interest rates. The scheme would provide a 50-year interest-free loan to corporates. “This will encourage the private sector to scale up research and innovation significantly in sunrise domains. We need to have programmes that combine the powers of our youth and technology,” she said in the budget speech.
The minister also announced a new scheme for strengthening deep-tech technologies working in the defence sector. It is aimed at speeding up the indigenisation drive in defence sector or ‘Atmanirbharta’. Since it being the interim budget, the capital outlay has not been made.
These schemes address the criticism that India is relying too much on low-skilled, low-value manufacturing jobs without building the capabilities to develop innovation and research-led economic growth.
However, outlay for major science and innovation schemes are under utilised, as per the revised estimates of FY24.
‘Science and Technology Institutional and Human Capacity Building’ scheme was allocated Rs 1068 crore and revised estimates put the outlay nearly half at Rs 500 crore. The estimates for the scheme in FY25 is also lowered to Rs 900 crore. Only Rs 200 crore of the budgeted Rs 500 crore has been spent on ‘Innovation, Technology Development and Deployment’ scheme. For 2024-25, the scheme has been allocated Rs 537 crore.
‘Biotechnology Research and Development’ scheme’s revised estimates stood at Rs 500 crore against the budgeted amount of Rs 1345 crore, dropping over 60%. For the upcoming fiscal, the scheme’s outlay has been slashed to Rs 1100 crore. National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber Physical Systems’ expenditure as per revised estimates stood at Rs 435 crore against budget estimates of Rs 580 crore.
Interest free loans
Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday, in budget, said the corpus will provide long-term financing or refinancing with low or zero interest rates. The financing scheme would provide a 50-year interest-free loan to corporates.