For every Rs 100 India spends on R&D, govt gives Rs 48, pvt Rs 45

The balance of research and development funding has shifted, with government and private industry now investing nearly the same amount. In recent years, private sector contributions to research have seen a notable rise. Government spending is concentrated on sectors deemed strategic and beneficial to the public. Additionally, multinational corporations are increasingly influential in shaping India’s research environment, although the overall research intensity still lags behind other major economies.

BENGALURU: For every Rs 100 spent on R&D, the govt contributes about Rs 48 while private industry accounts for Rs 45, latest data from R&D Statistics At a Glance 2025-26 by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), shows.The remaining Rs 7 comes from scientific and industrial research organisations (SIROs) and private higher education institutions.India’s Gross Expenditure on Research and Development (GERD) breached Rs 2.4-lakh crore in 2023-24, more than three times the Rs 79,356 crore recorded a decade ago. However, overall R&D spend is still under 1% of the GDP, touching 0.8%, as per the latest figures.Private industry’s share in GERD increased from 39.7% in 2020-21 to 45.2% in 2023-24 in just three years. During the same period, govt share declined from 54.5% to 48.2%, although it continues to remain the country’s single largest contributor to research spending.The report notes that private R&D expenditure has been growing at an average annual rate of around 20% over the last three years.While the DST report’s detailed analysis is up to 2023-24, it has projected overall trends for two more years: “The upward [spending] trend is expected to continue, with GERD projected to reach nearly Rs 2.8-lakh-crore by 2024-25 and more than Rs 3.1-lakh-crore crore by 2025–26,” it reads. Govt spending continues to be concentrated in strategic and public-interest sectors. Among the Centre’s scientific agencies, DRDO accounted for 32.7%, followed by the Department of Space (15%), Department of Atomic Energy (14.4%), Indian Council of Agricultural Research (13.1%) and Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (8.7%). Together, 12 major scientific agencies accounted for 76% of govt R&D spend.Transportation emerged as the biggest destination for industrial R&D, accounting for 32.6% of private sector expenditure, followed by pharmaceuticals (21.4%), biotechnology (8.6%), IT (7.9%) and electrical and electronics (5.9%).The report also highlights the growing role of MNCs in India’s research landscape. Their share in business R&D expenditure has increased from 49.9% in 2020-21 to 71.3% in 2023-24. According to the report, the growth rate of R&D expenditure has outpaced GDP growth after 2021-22, except in 2022-23, reflecting the increasing priority accorded to research and innovation.Despite the encouraging trends, India continues to trail many major economies in research intensity. At 0.8% of GDP, the country’s R&D expenditure remains below that of China (2.6%), Brazil (1.2%) and several advanced economies that invest more than 2% of their GDP in research.

Nevertheless, the latest figures point to a maturing innovation ecosystem where the burden of financing research is gradually shifting from being overwhelmingly government-led to one in which private enterprise is emerging as an almost equal partner.