Pvt sector should contribute more to research: President

Lamenting that expenditure on research and development in India was abysmally low as compared to many other countries, President Pranab Mukherjee today asked the private sector to play a bigger role in promoting innovation.
"In India today, our expenditure in terms of percentage of our GDP in research and development is abysmally low. It is 0.9 per cent of our GDP, much less than that of China, United Kingdom and even Israel. We need to step up our expenditure on research to pursue large-scale innovation," he said.
The President said the contribution of private sector in research was only one-fourth of the total expenditure, and asked industry to step up spending in this area to levels prevalent in countries like Japan, America and South Korea.

"The private sector, to my mind, can play a major role because right now they are contributing only one-fourth of our total expenditure on research and development, three-fourth of which is coming from the public sector," Mukherjee said while addressing the 8th convocation of the Malviya National Institute of Technology here.
He said Indian universities and technical institutes were fertile grounds for innovation, but research was affected due to shortcomings in the system.
"Academic and research positions in our universities are afflicted by talent deficiency. Our systems are not conducive to retaining talent and we lose many to organisations within and outside the country.

"We should evolve mechanisms to discourage this outflow of intellectual capital," he said.

"In India, we have firmly resolved to give centre stage to innovation.We have dedicated the decade 2010-20 to innovation. We have formulated the Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) Policy this year, for innovation to spur development.
"This policy calls for an eco-system where innovation activity thrives. It portrays the need to right-size our research and development system," he said.
Mukherjee also asked for encouraging Indian scholars working abroad in important research and teaching positions to return to the country to take up short-term assignments.
"Such a policy could reap our nation with benefits such as transmission of ideas and new methods of teaching and research," he said.

He said many weak nations had grown by effectively using science and technology.
The President earlier launched the website of Rajasthan Raj Bhawan, saying access to information was an important ingredient of democracy.