The impact of this phenomenon on public sector research — and on strategic national programmes like space, atomic energy, defence, agriculture and the like — is substantial. Salaries in the private sector have become so high that eminent scientists are leaving national laboratories in droves. For example, the National Chemical Laboratory (NCL), considered one of the best chemistry labs in the world, has lost several key scientists to the private sector in the past six months. The Nuclear Power Corporation is apparently losing three or four senior scientists every week. And similar is the case with every public sector R&D organisation.

A Positive Sign
As the national labs are beginning to decay, the private sector is showing signs of improving health. In 1991, India’s private sector spent less than 0.1 per cent of sales on research. Now they spend more than 0.5 per cent. The bulk of this increase has come from the pharmaceutical industry, which has increased its spending during this period from 0.4 per cent to 4.8 per cent. The automotive industry comes second with a spending of 0.9 per cent. More than 300 MNC centres in India together spend $4 billion (Rs 16,000 crore) a year on R&D. Yet, the country fares poorly compared to world standards.

Experts recommend 0.3 per cent of the country’s workforce engaged in R&D as the ideal. The figure for India is 12 times lower. India fares poorly even in the number of scientists engaged in R&D. Japan has 5,085 people per million engaged in R&D. The US has 4,526, Russia 3,415, China 633, Brazil 324 and India 120. This is reflected in the R&D output of the country. In the past 25 years, Chinese scientists have increased the number of research papers in quality journals by 104 times, while Indian scientists have increased this number by 2.3 times. Says Mashelkar, “The notion of large scientific human capital in India is a mirage.”