RS. 150 CRORE FOR PHARMACEUTICAL
RESEARCH
The government has
earmarked Rs. 150 crore for setting up a Pharmaceutical Research
and Development Fund during the 10th Plan. Making the
provision under the Department of Science and Technology (DST)
the Planning commission underscored the need to promote research
and development in drug industry. The Fund will be operated by
the DST which has already initiated the necessary follow-up action
to make the Fund operational at the earliest.
Meanwhile, the government
has been taking various measures to improve basic science, supporting
various research and development programmes and projects, strengthening
science and technology infrastructure and manpower development
as well as fiscal incentives for promoting R&D in industry.
As a result of these steps, a number of Indian scientists have
been elected as Fellows of Royal Society in various fields including
mathematics, chemistry and biology.
As per the Indian
Science Abstracts, research papers published by scientists in
India increased from over 14,000 in 1980 to more than 25000 in
2000 registering a growth of nearly 80 percent. According to the
Science Citation Index, India’s rank was 8th in 1980
and 15th in the year 2000. The quality of research
papers also improved with the number of citations from scientific
research papers of India increasing to more than 18,000 in 2001
from over 10,000 in 1995.
