Indian Economic Survey 2018 - A View Through Its Chapter 8

A COPY OF CHAPTER 8 IS GIVEN IN:

http://www.thehindu.com/business/budget/article22550002.ece/BINARY/Chapter8

Chapter 8 of the Survey is titled, "Transforming Science and Technology in India" and is twelve pages long.  I chose to read this as it is the topic most dear to my heart (After all, I have spent a few years of my life writing the book "Innovation by India for India - the Need and the Challenge" closely related to this topic), and also since it is one of the most important elements that could catapult India into the league of developed nations.  If the reports in newspapers like The Hindu were to be believed, this should have been a gem.  It unfortunately turns out to be an exercise of the sort, "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with baloney."  To me, an Indian citizen hoping against hope that the nation is changing, this is a major disappointment and highly disheartening.

First to the positive aspects.  Yes, it is glitzy, readable (really to a fault), with many Indian analogues of apple pies and motherhood mentioned ad nauseam.  It is honest to admit that the nation spends a meager 0.7% of its GDP for R&D, and even there the lion's share is spent by the government with a negligible bit by industry.  Wow, it not only has a call to spur greater spending by industry on R&D (don't ask how) and even the profound truth, "In a false sense of egalitarianism, we often chose the mediocre at every level" slipped past the sleepy babus who would never utter anything so politically incorrect.  There is the semblance of a novel idea of comparing India  to some other nations in the context of the specific comparable developmental stages of the nations.

Now, let us get to the negatives with some specificity.  I will limit to a small number of items and examples to make my point.

1. Overall, there is little substance or specifics in this chapter that adds credence to a commitment to achieve anything.  The glitzy graphs and colorful curves aside, citations to data are meager (This is understandable given that the bulk of the efforts are under the DRDO (Defense Research & Development Org.) and related government entities.)  This sounds more like a Sunday newspaper article rather than as an informed analysis of a matter of high national importance.  It ignores the real need in terms of innovative R&D for products and services that will make India richer and enable it to solve pressing problems of its people.  The emphasis on being a knowledge producer as opposed to producer of products and services based on proprietary knowledge is highly misplaced.

2. The use of expenditure as a metric is fundamentally flawed.  What the nation needs are comparisons based on outputs of the efforts quantified in monetary terms.  It is well known that little R&D happens at a level to compete globally except in a few chosen sectors like pharma and space, and India, despite bragging itself to be the software capital of the world, is yet to produce one company of the type of a Google, Facebook, Amazon, Adobe, ....The "efforts"listed in pages 127-128 to go beyond patents and papers is laughable both for the items covered and the depth at which they are considered.

3. One sees an obsession with China although China is not a leader in R&D.  It is viewed by all primarily as a factory for the world.  Is this reflective of the "Make in India" mindset that confuses body shopping and providing cheap labor with innovation and true R&D resulting in products and services to compete globally?  Furthermore, the comparison to other countries in their appropriate developmental stage is an artifice to hoodwink, which if it becomes the guiding beacon, will condemn the nation to mediocrity for many decades to come.  Whatever happened to the types of leaders who asserted that India must and will leapfrog into the 21st Century and whatever happened to that mindset? 

4. Among the empty platitudes are statements like industry should be induced to spend more on R&D but nothing that indicates that there is a plan and a metric to monitor etc.  Compare these to the specific recommendations in my book.  A large collection of those who worked on this chapter could certainly make a Ramaswami an insignificant kid on the block if they had chosen to do so with some concrete and bright ideas, but unfortunately they have failed miserably.

5. Some glee is expressed at the fewer number of Indian students going to the US for Ph.D., but it is completely ignored whether all Ph.Ds are equal.  When it comes to publications, again the emphasis seems to be on number with no effort to quantify them in terms of metrics that measure impact either on science or on the economy.

6. The possibility of leveraging returning NRI (Non Resident Indian) scientists is suggested casually with no serious thoughts on important issues like: (a) Would the returning ones be the ones the nation really needs or those that were found expendable from whence they come? (b) Given that the real pool to consider is the retiree who is financially secure already and may be driven more by science and service, is the nation ready to alter its anachronistic rules related to age?  Can it evolve a reliable process to identify those who can still make a big dent and not just be fooled by titles and awards often from a distant past?

7. From the topics for R&D emphasized and the overall lack of implementation focus and details, it is clear that this effort has benefited little from industry participation or those of real applied researchers.  The mindset appears to be a continuing one of getting a few pats on the back in some theoretical arena internationally while ignoring the real and pressing needs of the nation.  Some areas of research, however removed they are from the economic needs of the nation, continue to remain holy cows not to be questioned.  Influence appears to be still vested in the old bandicoots of these areas with little opportunity given to new ideas from the young to find a place in such an important exercise.

I fervently hope that the next year's report, and more importantly the revised plans, will not be as dismal and disappointing as this one.

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Dr. V. Ramaswami is the author of the book, "Innovation by India for India, the Need and the Challenge" widely available through Amazon and Flipkart.