INDIA MOST FAVOURABLE DESTINATION FOR GLOBAL
R&D
India is
fast becoming the most favourable destination for research and
development centres of global companies. The world’s best R&D
intensive corporations not only want to set up their own laboratories
here but also desire to cooperate with Indian research and development
institutions. This was disclosed by the Director General of the
Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Dr. R. A.
Mashelkar, here yesterday while making a special address at a
national seminar on ‘India as a dominant source of global technology’,
organised by the Associated Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
The total
annual R&D budget of India is around 2 billion dollars, which
is about half the budget of some top multi-nationals. In comparison,
the annual budget of the 40 odd laboratories of the CSIR-chain
totals about 150 million dollars but turn out cost-effective high
intellectual capital unparalleled anywhere in the world. Recognising
this advantage, global companies feel that though India is a developing
country, it is a developed one as regards its superb scientific
infrastructure, Dr. Mashelkar said. Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai,
Baroda and Noida are fast becoming the locales of R&D centres
of global companies.
Earlier,
inaugurating the seminar, the Minister for Human Resource Development
and Science and Technology Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi told the captains
of the Indian industry that the government is ready for private
sector participation even in projects covering frontier areas
of science. He underlined the need to be masters of our own technology
to achieve global competitiveness. The industry, he said, must
make the best use of fiscal and other measures promoted by the
government as well as the already existing strong science and
technology base. The New Millennium Indian Technology Leadership
Initiative, launched two years ago, offers a vast scope for joint
partnership, as it seeks to usher in a completely new paradigm
in technology perspective, to enable India secure global leadership
in technology. One of the daunting projects being undertaken under
the millennium initiative is the nano-particle based drug delivery
system, the first in the world, Dr. Joshi added.
