Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], November 8 (ANI): The just lately launched Rs 1 lakh crore Research Development and Innovation (RDI) fund, significantly targeted on India’s private sector, goals to help the private analysis and innovation mindset amongst gamers and mitigate the monetary dangers related to it.
Speaking at a workshop organised by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and the trade chamber FICCI, Secretary of the DST, Abhay Karandikar, has asserted that, largely, the private sector has “shied away from investing” in cutting-edge expertise growth, which at occasions requires longer gestation durations.
The DST, quoting their very own estimates, famous that the gross expenditure on R&D by the private sector continues to be in the vary of 30-35 per cent of their complete expenditure.
“And generally, it has been seen that the private sector has shied away from investing in cutting-edge technology development, which requires longer gestation periods,” the DST Secretary Karandikar added.
Understanding the problems the private sector faces in doing R&D that has a protracted gestation interval, the federal government, in accordance to the Secretary, introduced in this Rs 1 lakh crore RDI corpus.
Innovating applied sciences that require, for example, 5 to ten years to mature and switch right into a deployable, commercialisable product have a tendency to turn into tough for private gamers in India.
“Such a long gestation period also entails that kind of uncertainty and we have seen that you know the industry and the private sector investments in those cutting edge R &D sectors has lacked in India, and to address that gap, therefore the government decided to (support under the RDI scheme).”
“…we want to increase the investment of the private sector R&D but then there are inherent business risks and the commercial risks that are involved and obviously therefore we will not be able to attract the private sector investment unless those commercial and business risks are mitigated,” the secretary additional mentioned, offering rationale behind the RDI scheme launch.
Among the goals of the RDI scheme is to catalyse the private sector investment in dawn sectors.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on November 3 launched the Rs 1 lakh crore Research Development and Innovation (RDI) Scheme Fund, which was initially introduced in the interim Budget of 2024-25. The corpus will present long-term financing or refinancing with lengthy tenors and low or nil rates of interest, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had mentioned, presenting the 2024-25 interim Budget on February 1, 2024. This fund, she had mentioned, will encourage the private sector to scale up analysis and innovation considerably in dawn domains.
“The government thought that we can actually become a catalyst. We can start that movement. And then, hopefully, when these initial risks are mitigated, we will be able to attract the private sector investment at growth stage or scaling…,” the DST Secretary mentioned.
He additionally highlighted the truth that there are about 1500 enterprise capital investment companies which might be placing cash into our startup ecosystem, however just a few make investments in R&D, significantly in the cutting-edge deep tech sectors.
“And therefore, that needs to be now catalysed. And we believe that this Rs 1 lakh crore RDI fund is a step in the direction which will, in the coming years, catalyse 10x of this investment, hopefully from the private sectors and the other investors,” the secretary mentioned.
The RDI scheme has a complete outlay of Rs 1 lakh crore over 6 years, with Rs 20,000 crore allotted for FY 2025-26, funded from the Consolidated Fund of India. It gives long-term loans with low or zero curiosity, fairness investments, and contributions to the Deep-Tech Fund of Funds. Grants and short-term loans will not be supplied below this scheme, Jitendra Singh, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Science and Technology, Earth Sciences knowledgeable Rajya Sabha in a written reply on July 31, 2025.
During his deal with, he additionally emphasised the significance of acquiring high quality and genuine information to facilitate regulatory reforms and place India in the worldwide innovation index.
(*1*) the Secretary defined.
The Department of Science and Technology serves because the nodal company for formulating insurance policies and selling the scientific analysis, expertise and innovation ecosystem in India. (ANI)
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