New Delhi: This has been a year of seismic changes in India's science and technology ecosystem. The government set up a new body that will oversee research and development with a projected outlay of a whopping Rs 50,000 crores. The country also silently witnessed the first-ever high-profile dismissal of the sitting Secretary of the Department of Science and Technology (DST). The government also abolished many awards instituted by the science ministry without the approval of the Cabinet, causing a lot of heartburn among Indian scientists.
The shutting down of Vigyan Prasar, an autonomous unit of the Department of Science and Technology tasked with the popularization and outreach of S&T, came as disbelief. Especially since, for India to become a developed country by 2047, the foundation of this 'viksit bharat' has to be based on the use of atmanirbhar R&D. Explaining the complexities of science is a continuous exercise to dispel myths that come in the way of the organic diffusion of technologies. Sometimes omnibus decisions of the government take a collateral toll.
On the science front, India's space agency continued to bring back laurels by soft landing nearer the South Pole of the Moon. Likewise, after a long wait, the Indian Pressurized Heavy Water Reactors at Kakrapar in Gujarat, capable of producing up to 700 Megawatts of nuclear power, became operational—critical for India's Net Zero target. The year also saw the Covid-19 pandemic ebbing to a point that almost all curbs were removed. This came on the back of the country delivering over two billion doses of the vaccine against the Novel Coronavirus.
In a swift but expected move on August 9, 2023, in the monsoon session, the Parliament passed the Anusandhan National Research Foundation (NRF) Bill, 2023. The Act will establish NRF, an apex body to provide high-level strategic direction for scientific research in the country as per the recommendations of the National Education Policy (NEP). The total estimated cost is Rs. 50,000 crores during five years (2023-28), a highly laudable aspirational development embedded with a lot of wishful thinking.
Speaking in the Parliament, Union Science Minister Dr. Jitendra Singh said, "Anusandhan National Research Foundation" will define the stature of India in 2047 as it will catapult us to the league of developed nations pioneering new research in new frontiers.
“This is a Bill that is going to have a long-term effect, long-term outcomes, and all of us, each citizen of India, including those sitting on the other side, are going to be stakeholders. To that extent, this is possibly history in the making,” he said.
Dr. Singh added, “It envisages spending of Rs. 50,000 crores for five years, out of which Rs. 36,000 crores, almost 80%, is going to come from non-government sources—from industry & philanthropists, from domestic as well as outside sources.” Now, this is where the whole concept of A-NRF runs into a problem since the Indian industry has never invested this kind of money in R&D. The Indian industry prefers to buy ready-made foreign technology rather than persevering to develop its own intellectual property portfolio.
An assessment by the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister lays the truth bare when it states that 'as a fraction of GDP, public expenditure on R&D has been stagnant over the past two decades. It has remained constant at around 0.6% to 0.7% of GDP. This is well below that in major countries such as the US (2.8), China (2.1), Israel (4.3), and Korea (4.2). Public expenditure is not only dominant but also the driving force of R&D spend in the country. This is in sharp contrast to the pattern in most advanced countries where the private sector is the dominant force.' Can the mere creation of the A-NRF reverse this trend?
The A-NRF also has some inherent fundamental problems. The first is in the name itself, which has 'anusandhan' and 'research' embedded in it—incidentally, both mean the same thing. This double emphasis is strange. In addition, the A-NRF Act, for some reason, omits the inclusion of the current Cabinet Minister heading the Ministry of Earth Sciences from its purview. Mr. Kiren Rijiju is a disciplined soldier of the Bhartiya Janata Party and has not commented on this oversight, but nonetheless, the non-inclusion of a Cabinet-ranked science minister in the governance of the A-NRF could lead to some friction and heartburn.
In a possible first for the Ministry of Science and Technology, in a swift and silently executed move, the government dismissed the Secretary of the Department of Science and Technology on July 10, 2023. Dr. Srivari Chandrasekhar, a regarded chemist, still had three months left in his first term, but the government sent him packing. The Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government seeks time-bound accountability from its technocrats, and it seems it was not happy with his less than optimum level of commitment to the governance of science. His personal foibles were only an icing on the cake of continued non-performance. High-level touché sackings are usually couched as 'personal grounds.'
The year also saw the first open squabble between the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Kolkata-based Indian Science Congress Association, which oversaw the annual 'Kumbh mela' called Indian Science Congress—an event that has traditionally been inaugurated by the Prime Minister. The government withdrew its support, and the Science Congress, it seems, sued the government.
The government approved the National Quantum Mission (NQM) at a total cost of Rs.6003.65 crore from 2023-24 to 2030-31, aiming to seed, nurture, and scale up scientific and industrial R&D and create a vibrant & innovative ecosystem in Quantum Technology (QT). This will hopefully give India a fillip in this field. The new oil of the 21st century is chips, and India has almost no manufacturing base for chips. To fix this problem, the government approved the Semicon India program with a total outlay of Rs 76,000 crore for the development of the semiconductor and display manufacturing ecosystem in the country.
In the New Year, the much-delayed Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR), the 500 MW plutonium-powered one-of-a-kind reactor by India, is expected to become operational at Kalpakkam. This has been under construction for the last two decades and has gained the moniker of the most delayed atomic power plant in the world. But being a complex technology, this long lead time may be pardonable since it promises to be an 'akshaya patra' of energy. Moreover, in the 21st century, only Russia and India operate similar fast breeder reactors that convert 'waste to wealth.' To combat climate change, the Government has initiated steps to increase the nuclear power capacity from 7480 MW to 22480 MW by 2031-32, with the go-ahead accorded to 16 PHWR reactors of 700 MW capacity, costing almost one lakh crores.
The Rs 9000 crore Gaganyaan Mission of ISRO that promises to send India's first astronaut into space in about a year may bring many smiles to 1.4 billion Indians. In the upcoming election year, the homemade electronic voting machines will certainly empower the world's largest democracy.