Already at snail's pace, India Inc's R&D spending slowing down further

Low single-digit growth for the biggest of Indian companies

Companies’ research and development (R&D) spends grew at their slowest pace in at least a decade in the past year, coming in at 3.5 per cent for 2017-18 (FY18), lower than 5.8 per cent seen last year, the lowest since FY09.

Business Standard looked at 105 companies from the S&P BSE 500 universe with data since at least FY08. The list has India's most valuable petrochemical company, a manufacturer of capital goods and pharmaceutical firm; among others. The numbers are declared as part of companies' annual reports, some of which came in only recently.

The total R&D spends are 62