As Tamil Nadu approaches its Assembly elections, its ambition to change into a $1-trillion economic system and its place as certainly one of India’s main industrial and data hubs means it’s value inspecting how the State has invested in science and environmental points within the final 5 years.
First, the State’s technique on setting and local weather motion has been to combine local weather motion throughout sectors reasonably than enhance a core allocation for the setting and local weather change division. Within this framework, it has launched a collection of devoted environmental missions since 2021. In the 2021-22 fiscal, the State allotted ₹500 crore to set up the Tamil Nadu Climate Change Mission — one of many first of its type amongst States — and one other ₹150 crore for the Wetlands Mission to restore 100 ecologically delicate water our bodies.
The following yr the State established the Tamil Nadu Green Climate Fund with a ₹1,000-crore corpus to finance renewable power, electrical mobility, pollution-control applied sciences, forest conservation, and circular-economy tasks, amongst different climate-related applied sciences. It dedicated an preliminary ₹100 crore as sponsor capital with the fund tasked with mobilising more from improvement finance establishments and worldwide local weather buyers.
By 2023-24, it had expanded its conservation efforts by dedicating ₹10 crore to Project Nilgiri Tahr and scaling up the Green Tamil Nadu Mission to enhance forest cowl. The 2024-25 funds expanded the Sustainably Harnessing Ocean Resources, or SHORE, scheme to strengthen the blue economic system and offered subsidies for electrical automobiles to promote sustainable transportation.
Spending surged in 2025-26 as the federal government allotted ₹21,178 crore to the power division, which incorporates investments in renewable era, pumped-storage hydro tasks, battery power storage programs, and different energy infrastructure, and ₹100 crore to construct new basic science analysis centres in Chennai and Coimbatore.
The authorities additionally mentioned in 2025 that Tamil Nadu had spent round ₹15,270 crore over the earlier 4 years on catastrophe aid, mitigation, preparedness, and capacity-building programmes.
S&T spending
Second, though income spending on science and technology (S&T) has risen in recent times, it nonetheless represents solely a small share of the State’s broader fiscal priorities. Before continuing additional, observe that in accordance to the National S&T Management Information System (NSTMIS), Tamil Nadu had spent more than ₹600 crore a yr on general R&D till 2020-21. The distinction arises as a result of the NSTMIS assesses the R&D expenditure throughout departments reasonably than going by the bills underneath the S&T head. For Tamil Nadu, this expenditure is unfold throughout agriculture (crop analysis, pest management, soil science, and many others.), veterinary companies (livestock and aquaculture analysis), public well being (medical analysis at State medical school), and different utilized sectors.
Even this determine has two vital dimensions. For Tamil Nadu, this expense is unfold throughout agriculture (crop analysis, pest management, soil science, and many others.), veterinary companies (livestock and aquaculture analysis), public well being (medical analysis at State medical schools), and different utilized sectors. Dimension 1: utilized analysis doesn’t produce the underlying IP. Dimension 2: in the identical interval when Tamil Nadu spent simply over ₹600 crore a yr on general R&D, Gujarat spent ₹922 crore and Uttar Pradesh, more than ₹1,000 crore.
A worldwide comparability is feasible as effectively. When South Korea’s GDP per capita was what Tamil Nadu’s is at present, it was already allocating 1.2% of its GDP to R&D. However, Tamil Nadu’s complete R&D expenditure is underneath 0.5% of its GSDP, which means that the State is at present spending lower than half of what’s required (by the South Korean yardstick) to foster a world-class innovation ecosystem.
The State’s devoted budgetary allocation for pure S&T specifically has been a lot decrease after all. In the last decade main up to 2021-22, it had an annual income expenditure averaging round ₹10 crore. But because the State pivoted to being a technology-driven economic system and bought happening its ‘net zero’ dedication, the figures started to climb. By the 2025-26 fiscal, as an example, the allocation reached ₹67.5 crore and in 2026-27, an estimated ₹81 crore.
But whereas the rise between pre-2021 and 2021-27 is eightfold in nominal phrases, it’s dwarfed by the allocations for the climate-related missions. The State put aside more than ₹21,000 crore for the power sector in 2025-26 alone. In truth, till it introduced ₹100 crore within the 2025-26 funds for the brand new ‘Basic Sciences and Mathematics Research Centres’ in Chennai and Coimbatore, State funding for basic analysis was modest — most of it within the type of small grant programmes (₹10,000 to ₹1,00,000) similar to these administered by the State Council for Science and Technology. The main analysis establishments within the State, similar to IIT-Madras and the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, are principally funded by the Union authorities.
As a outcome, the State at present lacks the mature R&D required to develop homegrown applied sciences. This means Tamil Nadu’s present expenditure dangers rendering it a client of green applied sciences, together with shopping for photo voltaic panels and EV batteries, reasonably than being a creator of the underlying analysis breakthroughs. For occasion, regardless of Tamil Nadu being a nationwide chief in photo voltaic installations, more than 80% of photovoltaic modules in these tasks are imported from China or sourced from manufacturing hubs in Gujarat, similar to these operated by the Adani Group or Waaree Energies.
Published – March 12, 2026 07:05 am IST