India?s technology policy should be tweaked to facilitate spontaneous assimilation of acquired foreign technologies into our indigenous research base, Planning Commission member K Kasturirangan has said. ?There is a need for critical assessment of our ability for technology-driven manufacturing,?he told FE in an exclusive interview.
The eminent space scientist is the head of the Planning Commission group for formulating a national policy for public expenditure on R&D to tackle the climate change impact.
India?s share in global manufacturing value added is a measly 1.36% as opposed to China?s 11%. The share of manufacturing in India?s GDP has remained at 17% since 1990-91, despite the substantial fall in the share of agriculture in GDP, indicating that the space vacated by agriculture has been occupied completely by services.
?Technology transfer is a tricky issue. It is not easy to get know-how from foreign technology collaborators or investors. They normally tend to transfer technologies that existed prior to the state-of-the-art one. To adopt such outdated technologies is fruitless exercise. What is needed is to create indigenous capacities to make effective use of the adopted technologies. We need to have created the infrastructure and critical mass of professional expertise in the country to assimilate and update the foreign technologies before they are acquired,? Kasturirangan said.
Cryogenic engines are an example of efficient use of acquired technologies for indigenous capacity building. Even as we were negotiating with the Russians to buy the technology for these rocket motors that run on liquid fuels, a team of Indian scientists had already done considerable research in the area, he recalled. This knowledge base helped the country to seamlessly assimilate the technology and improve upon it.
Private investment in research in India is far below the required level, he said. Korea accounts for 53% of the private sector R&D spending in the developing world.
The noted astrophysicist?s comments are in consonance with the view expressed by the high-level committee on manufacturing set up by the Prime Minister which made a strong case for ?linking? foreign direct investment (FDI) and technology policies to the development of domestic manufacturing. The committee headed by National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council chairman V Krishnamurthy drew attention to China?s highly successful strategy of employing a variety of policy and administrative instruments for not only developing domestic manufacturing but promoting up-gradation of technologies by its domestic industry. While China has assimilated the technologies from foreign investors to bolster its manufacturing capabilities, India has largely depended on technology spillovers of FDI that have not been enough to strengthen its domestic technology base.
Stressing that a very high degree of self-reliance in technology is critical, Kasturirangan said: ?There should be a clear-cut policy that ensures that the fruits of science and technology (S&T) are catalysts for inclusive growth. What is required is a critical mass of knowledge-base community, that is people with the ability and bent of mind to pursue pure, fundamental research. The policy should reflect a definitive plan to strengthen the country?s capability to reinforce national security through strategic initiatives in a variety of fields. Technological self-reliance would need to reflect not only on the strategic component of national security but also on the commercial arena.?
Commenting on the current policy for technology transfer, he said ?Production under licence protection agreement is different from technology transfer. To a certain extent, it is the value of the commerce that determines whether the transfer takes place. What we need is the kind of one-shot inputs on which we can build on and try to even outdo the transferee on the strength of our indigenous capabilities for assimilation and updation of the technologies. The strategy should be to achieve a very high degree of self-reliance- not merely from a national security perspective but also for commercial benefits in a rapidly globalizing world. Our requirements of new technologies are unlimited; in fact, they are growing in a meteoric fashion. Every major activity (that can benefit from infusion of new technologies) is critical to us. The strategy therefore should to pursue the three mutually inclusive goals of developing value-added commercial systems, reinforcing national defence and using the technologies for the well-being of the people at large.?
Kasturirangan is of the view that India is doing ?pretty well? in the area of pure research, even as it has to work hard to develop a competitive technology-driven manufacturing base. ?As far as research reports are concerned, India and China were almost at par about ten years ago. In 1998 for instance, the countries produced some 28,000-30,000 papers each. But now China has moved far ahead with 12,000 papers as against India?s 40,000 or so. But the number of papers is just one indictor of how vigorous the field of research is. More important is the quality of these papers in terms the citations they receive etc. And on this count, India is doing pretty well.?
The Eleventh Plan outlay for science and technology is two and half times that of the previous Plan. The outlays to various departments like atomic energy, biotechnology, science and technology, DSIR and the ministry of earth sciences in the current Plan total Rs 75,000 crore. These are fairly large investments, capable of bringing about a qualitative change in the outcome, but the allocations would need to increase further.
He cited areas like physics of neutrino, plasma research, nuclear medicine, nano technology, medical and agri biotechnology as areas India can make major headway in the coming years. Creating the requisite degree of weather prediction capability is a big challenge.