Private industry overtakes government in India’s research spending, DST data show

India's private industry accounted for 51.8% of national research spending in 2023-24, overtaking all tiers of government combined for the first time, according to Department of Science and Technology figures cited in a Hindu editorial. Industry also now employs more core researchers than government institutions, transport firms are the leading corporate R&D investors, followed by pharmaceuticals, biotechnology and information technology. Private R&D spending nearly doubled between 2020-21 and 2021-22, from Rs 46,388 crore to Rs 82,975 crore, while total R&D spending rose to Rs 1.95 lakh crore. The editorial notes that new sustainability disclosure and RBI reporting rules took effect around the same time, and suggests part of the jump reflects previously uncounted spending, including at foreign subsidiaries and multinational captive centres, rather than genuinely new money. India's R&D spending remains 0.84% of GDP, well below China, the United States and South Korea, with 354 researchers per million people. The Anusandhan National Research Foundation, with a proposed Rs 50,000 crore corpus, is meant to expand that researcher base.