Will the Union budget that is to be announced on February 1st, play a role in enabling India to get future ready? Can it incentivise the options to create winners across sectors? One way in which this can be done is by sending out a clear signal on what India can spend on research, says Kris Gopalakrishnan. The Philanthropist, co-founder of Infosys, chairman and co-founder of Axilor Ventures took time out from his busy schedule to explain why there is reason to hope for this in the budget and why it is crucial that India gets to substantially increase its spending on research. Gopalakrishnan, who has backed many entrepreneurial ventures and in his personal capacity also supported basic research in frontier areas of technology such as brain research talks of the investment numbers that will matter and why. Here are the excerpts from the interview:
Mr Kris Gopalakrishnan, there is a lot of anticipation from the budget on job creation and on measures to accelerate the economic growth, what are you hoping to see?
While these are all valid expectations from the budget, we do need to remember that this crisis (the pandemic) has increased the confidence in India’s ability to withstand any shock or face any crisis. This is because while we are still a developing country we could administer 1.5 billion vaccines. We were able to design, develop and manufacture vaccines in India and also make it affordable. We have also developed indigenous technology for ventilators, PPEs and other products where we had no domestic production and were import dependent. Today, we are not only self-sufficient in these areas but we are also able to export them. Both these aspects point to something that I am focussed on which is our own capability to design new products, services and to create new businesses and also new jobs. To do this, we need to invest more in research. Currently, India invests about 0.7 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in research, I would like to see this go to about 3 per cent of the GDP. The government spends about 0.6 per cent of the GDP and I would like to see this go up to 1.5 per cent and the private sector investments must go up from 0.1 per cent to 1.5 per cent. Even if not in one year, this is the direction India needs to take and get there in the next two to three years.
What are the areas in which the investments in research need to increase in the government and private sector?
Typically, basic research, with its longer gestation period, is best supported by government and by philanthropy but applied research tends to find support in the private sector, which needs to make a return on its investments in a timeframe of 3 to 5 years. Today, there are so many technologies emerging ranging from space, genomics, synthetic biology apart from computing itself, which is itself evolving into internet of things and computing everywhere and then there are the areas of virtual reality, artificial intelligence and machine learning. Several areas that will require many in India to create their own intellectual property.
The government has come out with mission mode programmes in space, in quantum computing and other areas where we need to make sure that enough money is invested in these technologies. The government has also announced National Research Foundation. I would like to see this getting activated. As for the private sector, we should incentivize investment into R&D – both internal R&D within an organization and also areas where collaboration happens with academic institutions. Previously, we used to give 150 per cent credit for the money invested into a recognized R&D institution. This should be reinstated and we should infact encourage companies to invest more by giving them double the amount they invest as credit for the research investments.
At a time when there is an air of anticipation on measures to create more jobs, can you please help draw a link between job creation and investments into research and innovation? Or will it all result in few urban or elite jobs?
I want to give the example from the banking sector. The automation in the Indian banking, while it raised concerns over job losses in the 1970s and 1980s, eventually ended up in transforming the banking sector, expanding its footprint and resulting in even more job creation. This is true of any sector that is growing and changing for all that will be needed is that people will need to be training to tap the new opportunities.
Can you also help explain the imperative for investment in research in a global context with supply chain inter-linkages and the element of challenge from China in the current context?
We have realised how the globe is an interconnected supply chain. There is now need to create self – sufficiency, risk mitigation and domestic capacities to withstand any future breaks in supply chains. I am confident we can do it and do it in a cost-effective manner. Today, when there is a shortage of computer chips, the government has a very large programme for semiconductor manufacturing and allocated Rs 70,000 crore for it. We need to take advantage of that and make sure we create domestic semiconductor hardware manufacturing industry and cut down imports and also create jobs in this and other strategic areas.
What are some of the areas where you see the investments in research making huge impact?
Take R&D in pharma. We need to make sure that all the drugs discovered are also affordable for the entire population. For example, today, there is a therapy for cancer which is based on programming your immune system or what is called immunotherapy. A dose costs approximately $600,000, which even the rich people in the US cannot afford. Now, how can anybody in India afford this? So, if India works on such inventions then I strongly believe that the costs can come down. Look at vaccines, the costs initially were $ 30 to $ 40 and in India this was brought down to approximately Rs 150 or just $ 2. This is again a good example of what India can do if it does the R&D and manufacturing and this is what is needed. What is equally important is that this is not just helping India but also helping the 7 billion people around the world. This is because when the research is done in a developed country it is typically targeted at the top 10 per cent of the population but if the research is done in India for instance then 100 per cent of the population globally could stand to gain because it suddenly becomes affordable. That is the role that India can play and help not just India but also the rest of the world.
from The Financial Express https://ift.tt/ZArnBCUKS
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