(a) whether it is a fact that the Research and Development efforts in the country is largely aimless and working without any specific time bound objectives;
(b) if so, the reasons therefor; and
(c) the steps proposed to be taken by the Government in this regard?
MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF PLANNING; MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY AND MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF EARTH SCIENCES(ASHWANI KUMAR)
(a) to (c): No, Madam. Less than 20% of Research and Development (R & D) funds developed are used in basic research with potential for long term applications. The rest of investments are in the strategic areas like space, atomic energy, defence and mission mode programmes like Open Source Drug Discovery, etc. India invests predominantly focused Research and Development (R&D) Program and with specific time bound objectives. Several national laboratories and academic institutions are engaged in result oriented research including mission mode programmes. India has been able to build up capacity in a wide range of areas of modern technology, from software engineering to health biotechnology and the performance of our country in recent years is impressive and promising. Mission mode research programmes have brought significant achievements in the areas of nuclear and space science and technology, electronics, IT and defence. Time bound R&D objectives has positioned our nation in building partnerships with other leading countries in mega projects like India-Japan beamline at the Photon Factory, KEK, Japan; Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR), Germany; Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, Geneva; Elettra Synchrotron Facility at Trieste, Italy; India based Neutrino Observatory (INO) etc. Extra Mural Research supports projects leading to fundamental research and thereby create much-needed human and institutional capacity in frontier areas of Science and Technology. India’s position globally in the field of scientific research and development, as measured by the number of research papers published, has improved from 13th position in 1996 to 12th position in 2001 and 10th position in 2006 and further to 9th position in 2010 as per the Scopus International database. In 2010 India was ranked at 6th in terms of publications in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology. In case of research in chemistry, India ranks 5th in the world with respect to scientific publications. The Government has instituted several monitoring mechanisms to review and evaluate the outcome of the R&D projects at various stages of its implementation. This includes mid-term review by experts in the field, incorporating necessary changes, if required, and a final evaluation to measure the extent of successfulness in R&D projects. These measures ensure achieving the objectives in planned time scales.