India’s Science Problem: Basic Research Funding and GERD

The Lift Line

“If India wants the technologies of tomorrow, it must fund the science of today.” (Kamini Walia, The Indian Express)

Why This Editorial Matters for Your Exam

This signed column in The Indian Express of 13 October 2026, “India’s science problem is not talent, but priorities”, is by Kamini Walia, who is described as “senior scientist and programme officer, AMR, ICMR”. It is her argument, not the paper’s. Her peg is the Nobel season: “Every October, the Nobel announcements trigger a familiar conversation in India”.

Her case, in one line: India has the talent, but it spends too little on research, too little of that money comes from business, and the push for quick products starves the basic science on which technology rests.

Read it with three earlier pieces. C. Raja Mohan’s column in September on connecting science with industry used the same Economic Survey figures that Walia uses. Our August editorial on private industry’s R&D spending works from the 2023-24 data, and our editorial on why Indian research can shape the world, published last week, covers the new funding bodies. For the ANRF and the Prime Minister’s research chairs, see our PMRC deep dive.

GS Paper 3: Science and technology, developments and their applications; indigenisation of technology; mobilisation of resources. GS Paper 2: Government policies and interventions; statutory bodies such as the ANRF. Essay: science, innovation and national development.

In the news: in the week of the Nobel announcements, Kamini Walia argues that India’s science gap is one of priorities, and sets out four funding reforms and a change in how scientists are judged.

Background and Context

Key terms first

Term	What it means
GERD	Gross expenditure on research and development, by all sectors: government, higher education, business and private non-profit bodies
GERD intensity	GERD as a share of GDP, the usual yardstick for comparing countries
Basic (discovery) research	Work on how things work, with no product promised; Walia calls basic science “the landscape from which innovation emerges”
Translation and deployment	Turning a discovery into a usable technology, and then putting it to use; Walia wants each funded as a separate portfolio
Investigator-driven research	Projects chosen by the scientist’s own question, not set by an agency’s product target
ANRF	Anusandhan National Research Foundation, a statutory body set up under an Act of 2023
RDI Scheme	The Research, Development and Innovation Scheme, whose money sits in a Special Purpose Fund within the ANRF

Her numbers and the latest official ones

Walia’s figures carry no years. Set them beside the sourced figures, each with its year:

Measure	Walia’s figure	The sourced figure
India’s GERD as a share of GDP	“only about 0.64 per cent”	0.84 per cent in 2023-24, up from 0.64 per cent in 2020-21, according to the Department of Science and Technology’s Research and Development Statistics 2025-26, as reported. The Economic Survey 2025-26 and a PIB release of March 2026 also used 0.64 per cent
India’s GERD in rupees	not given	Rs 79,355.89 crore in 2013-14 to Rs 2,44,767.81 crore in 2023-24
Business share of India’s R&D	“around 40 per cent”	the Economic Survey 2025-26 put it at 41 per cent, as reported by Business Today; on the 2023-24 data, private industry accounted for 45.2 per cent, up from 32.2 per cent in 2020-21
Business share, US and China	“roughly three-quarters”	the Economic Survey 2025-26, as reported: US 75 per cent, China 77 per cent (South Korea 79 per cent). A PIB release of March 2026 says that in leading innovation-driven economies the private sector contributes “over 70%”
United States	“about 3.4 per cent” of GDP	3.45 per cent (World Bank, from UNESCO data, 2023)
Germany	“over 3 per cent”	3.15 per cent (2023)
Japan	“more than 3.5 per cent”	3.44 per cent (2023)
South Korea	“over 5 per cent”	4.94 per cent (2023)
China	“approaching 2.7 per cent”	2.58 per cent (2023); 2.69 per cent for 2024, as reported by Business Standard

Two cautions follow. First, 0.64 and 0.84 are different years, not two readings of the same year. Second, reports of the same 2023-24 data give two private shares, 45.2 per cent for private industry and 51.8 per cent in others (Rs 1.27 lakh crore of Rs 2.45 lakh crore), and both are sometimes called “private industry”. The 51.8 per cent is everything outside the government’s 48.2 per cent, so it covers more than private industry. Quote the year and the source with any number.

China, her example

Walia writes that China “produced around 80 per cent of the world’s solar PV modules and battery cells in 2024, while its share of global electric-car production reached about 70 per cent in 2025.” The International Energy Agency’s Global EV Outlook 2026, as reported, puts China’s share at “nearly three-quarters” of the almost 22 million electric cars produced in 2025, and at “over 80%” of battery cell production in 2025. Her lesson from China is “connecting discovery to engineering, manufacturing and markets”.

What the Government has done

Instrument	What the record shows
ANRF	The Union Cabinet approved the Anusandhan National Research Foundation Bill on 28 June 2023, “at a total estimated cost of Rs. 50,000 crore during five years (2023-28)” (PIB). When Parliament passed it, the Government said that “Rs. 36,000 crore, almost 80%, is going to come from non-government sources” (PIB, 9 August 2023)
RDI Scheme	Approved by the Union Cabinet on 1 July 2025 “with a corpus of Rs. One lakh Crore”; the money sits in “a Special Purpose Fund (SPF) established within the ANRF”. The scheme “envisages a corpus of ₹1 lakh crore over a period of six years”, with Rs 20,000 crore allocated in the Union Budget for 2025-26 (PIB, 4 February 2026)

A second view ran in the same paper a day earlier. Abhay Karandikar, who writes as a member of NITI Aayog and former Secretary of the Department of Science and Technology, uses the newer 0.84 per cent figure and presents the Rs 1 lakh crore RDI Fund as “a significant step” towards closing the financing gap of the “valley of death”, where technologies need pilot-scale demonstration and productisation.

The Analysis

1. Money matters, but it is not the whole story. Walia opens with the spending gap and then says “the more revealing statistic is who funds research.” Even on the newer figure of 0.84 per cent for 2023-24, India spends a fraction of what the US (3.45 per cent) or South Korea (4.94 per cent) spent in 2023. Spending has grown in rupees, from about Rs 79,356 crore in 2013-14 to about Rs 2,44,768 crore in 2023-24, roughly three times as much, but the share of GDP is still below 1 per cent.

2. Business pays too little. Her second gap is private participation. Private industry’s share rose from 32.2 per cent in 2020-21 to 45.2 per cent in 2023-24, a real gain, but it remains well short of the three-quarters that the Economic Survey reports for the US and China. A research system that leans heavily on the state is exposed to shifts in public budgets.

3. The pipeline is being run backwards. This is the column’s distinctive point. Scientists, she writes, face “increasing pressure” to “develop technologies”, “build products”, “commercialise research” and “deliver solutions”. These are “legitimate national priorities but technology cannot be produced on demand”. Her example: a diagnostic platform may need “years of work on disease biology, pathogen behaviour, host response, biomarkers and molecular mechanisms before a product becomes possible.” Her verdict: “We are emphasising the last few stages while underinvesting in the first.”

4. Four changes to how money flows. She proposes:

a protected basic-science funding window, in which “a defined proportion of competitive funding” supports investigator-driven, curiosity-led research “without requiring every project to promise a patent, product or technology”;
funding divided into discovery, translation and deployment portfolios, “with different timelines and success metrics”;
long-duration funding, “with rigorous scientific review but considerably less administrative micromanagement”;
a national shared research infrastructure, so that genomics, proteomics, advanced imaging, biobanks, structural biology, AI and computational platforms “should be accessible across institutions”.

5. Judge scientists on discovery. Publication counts, journal impact factors, patents and grant utilisation are “convenient metrics, but they do not necessarily measure discovery.” She wants assessment to reward “originality, reproducibility, important questions, new knowledge, datasets, platforms, technologies and influence on science or health policy.” The aim is a system where a young scientist can pursue an unconventional question for 10 or 15 years, “fail, change direction and try again without being penalised”.

6. Where the column can be questioned. Her headline figures are older ones: the 0.64 per cent and “around 40 per cent” match the Economic Survey’s numbers, while the 2023-24 data show 0.84 per cent and 45.2 per cent. Her figures for Japan and South Korea are higher than the World Bank’s 2023 values. None of this weakens her main point, which is about the mix of funding rather than its size. The Government’s big new instruments lean towards private money and towards carrying research to market: the ANRF expects most of its Rs 50,000 crore from non-government sources, and Karandikar presents the RDI Fund as an answer to the “valley of death”. Her warning is that the discovery end must not be left to fend for itself.

Data and Institutions Vault

Prelims-grade facts:

Spending:

GERD: gross expenditure on R&D by all sectors; GERD intensity is GERD as a share of GDP.

India’s GERD: 0.84 per cent of GDP in 2023-24, up from 0.64 per cent in 2020-21 (DST, R&D Statistics 2025-26).

In rupees: Rs 2,44,767.81 crore in 2023-24, from Rs 79,355.89 crore in 2013-14.

Private industry’s share: 45.2 per cent in 2023-24, up from 32.2 per cent in 2020-21.

Peers, 2023 (World Bank): US 3.45; Germany 3.15; Japan 3.44; South Korea 4.94; China 2.58 per cent of GDP.

Institutions:

ANRF: Anusandhan National Research Foundation, a statutory body under an Act of 2023.

ANRF outlay: Rs 50,000 crore over 2023-28, of which about Rs 36,000 crore is expected from non-government sources.

RDI Scheme: approved by the Union Cabinet on 1 July 2025; Rs 20,000 crore allocated for 2025-26.

RDI corpus: Rs 1 lakh crore over six years, held in a Special Purpose Fund within the ANRF.

China (IEA, 2025): nearly three-quarters of global electric-car production; over 80 per cent of battery cell production.

⚠️ Watch the trap: 0.64 per cent of GDP is the 2020-21 figure; 0.84 per cent is 2023-24. Reports of the same 2023-24 data give 45.2 per cent (private industry) and 51.8 per cent (everything outside government, 100 minus 48.2); quote the year and the source. The RDI Scheme’s Rs 1 lakh crore is a corpus over six years, not money already spent; the 2025-26 allocation was Rs 20,000 crore. Not all of the ANRF’s Rs 50,000 crore is government money.

The Debate

Walia’s case	The other view
India spends too little on research	Spending has risen to 0.84 per cent of GDP (2023-24), and new bodies such as the ANRF and the RDI Scheme add money
Business funds too small a share	Private industry’s share rose from 32.2 to 45.2 per cent between 2020-21 and 2023-24
Ring-fence a share for curiosity-led research	A fixed share needs strong peer review to stay accountable when budgets are tight
Less administrative micromanagement	Public money still needs audit and checks on use
Judge discovery, not counts	Counts and impact factors are easy to compare; new measures need trusted reviewers
Product pressure starves basic science	Translation is a real gap too; Karandikar sees the RDI Fund as an answer to it

How to Think About This

Break R&D policy into three questions. How much? That is GERD intensity, where India trails its peers. Who pays? That is the private share, which is rising but still low. What kind? That is the split between discovery, translation and deployment, and it is the column’s real subject. A good Mains answer gives one fact for each question, with its year, and then argues that the third question decides whether the first two pay off.

Keep the keywords ready: basic research, translational research, GERD intensity, investigator-driven research, long-duration funding, shared research infrastructure and the “valley of death”.

Diagram-in-Words

Argument map

Priorities, not talent

How much India spends, who pays, and what kind of research gets funded.

Kamini Walia’s argument in The Indian Express, with the spending figures and their years.

Takeaway Box

The argument: India’s science problem is priorities, not talent: low spending, a low business share, and pressure for products that starves basic science.
The numbers: GERD was 0.84 per cent of GDP in 2023-24 (0.64 per cent in 2020-21); private industry’s share was 45.2 per cent in 2023-24.
The reforms: a protected basic-science window, three funding portfolios, long-duration grants, shared infrastructure, and evaluation that rewards discovery.
The institutions: the ANRF (Act of 2023, Rs 50,000 crore over 2023-28) and the RDI Scheme (Rs 1 lakh crore corpus over six years, approved 1 July 2025).
The line to quote: “If India wants the technologies of tomorrow, it must fund the science of today.”

Revision Flowchart

Revision flowchart