Question : INDIA`S CONTRIBUTION IN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

MINISTER OF THE STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY AND MINISTER OF EARTH SCIENCES (KAPIL SIBAL)

(a) & (b): No single index exists which collectively takes into account the number of patents obtained, papers published in science and technology journals, Ph.Ds. obtained, etc. to indicate the contribution of a country to world science. However, a comparative picture of China and India is indicated below

China	India

Ph.Ds/year	20,000	4,500

No. of Science	53,000	19,500
Citation Index Papers

Patent statistics published recently by World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) show that during 2004, patent filings by residents in China (65,786) was more than nine times the corresponding patent filing (7179) by residents in India.

It may be observed that R&D investments in China is about Rs.2,66,000 crores (US $ 64 billion) per year as against about Rs.20,000 crores (US $ 5 billion) in India. Similarly, R&D professionals in China are about 8.5 lakhs as compared to 1.15 lakhs in India.

The expenditure on R&D by the Central Government has moved from Rs.11050 crores in 2000-2001 to Rs.12072 crores in 2002-2003. The total investment on R&D acitivities in the country was Rs.18000 crores in 2002-03 and the same is estimated to be Rs.19726 crores in 2003-04 and Rs.21639 crores in 2004-05. The Government further plans to increase the investments in R&D and similarly many schemes have been initiated to attract more and more S&T professionals into R&D.