By Kaushal Verma
New Delhi [India] November 3 : India needs to achieve a new phase of growth with technological sovereignty at its core, Government's Principal Scientific Adviser Ajay Kumar Sood has said.
"We need to have technological sovereignty, which is absolutely essential for the strategic autonomy of a country. We need to see how the private sector R&D can join the government support through ANRF (Anusandhan National Research Foundation) and RDI (Research Development and Innovation) Scheme to really synergise the entire R&D system," Sood told ANI on Monday.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday launched the Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) Fund, a scheme with a corpus of Rs one lakh crore aimed at boosting private sector investment in research and development. The fund aims to de-risk private investment in research and encourage industries to pursue bold, high-impact innovation.
Sood told ANI on the sidelines of the Empowered Science and Technology Innovation Council (ESTIC) event that the Prime Minister has given a roadmap and a vision of how technology can benefit society.
"We must see that technology becomes more essential to every aspect of national growth," Sood said.
The discussions at the ESTIC platform revolved around strengthening the R&D ecosystem, achieving self-reliance in critical technologies, and ensuring that innovation translates into tangible social and economic impact.
Referring to Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) scheme he said it is going to be a game changer and that the initiatives will help synergise the public and private R&D ecosystems and accelerate the country's technological capabilities.
He said the R&D fund will look at cutting-edge technologies which are futuristic.
Sood said that experts and panelists in the event called for deeper engagement of Tier-II and Tier-III institutions to ensure that innovation is not limited to elite centres but percolates across the country.
"How do we bring Tier-II and Tier-III institutions as much into the play as Tier-I, and really, we are seeing where policy intervention is needed to address it. All this is making a roadmap to take us forward," he added.
Lauding India's growing startup ecosystem in the space sector, Sood said "we have many hundreds of startups now which were in one or two digits earlier. Right from the rockets, satellite and utilisation of data and all that is being done by the deep-tech startups."
The Union Cabinet had in July approved the Research Development and Innovation (RDI) Scheme with a corpus of one lakh crore rupees to bolster India's research and innovation ecosystem.
Recognising the critical role that the private sector plays in driving innovation and commercialising research, the RDI Scheme aims to provide long-term financing or refinancing with long tenors at low or nil interest rates to spur private sector investment in RDI. The scheme has been designed to overcome the constraints and challenges in funding of private sector and seeks to provide growth and risk capital to sunrise and strategic sectors to facilitate innovation, promote adoption of technology and enhance competitiveness.
The Governing Board of Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF), chaired by the Prime Minister, will provide overarching strategic direction to the RDI scheme.