India's deep-tech push needs labs, postdocs and buyers, not just cash (opens the source in a new tab)
- A Mint editorial says the ₹1 trillion Research, Development and Innovation Fund now backs startups directly, but asks what India gains if foreign rivals later buy them. It wants research labs co-developing products with private firms.
- A Mint column by Narayan Ramachandran argues the bigger gap is people: top postdocs leave and labs sit apart from universities, so he would fold CSIR's labs into the university system, as China did.
- In a Mint op-ed, Niti Aayog's Abhay Karandikar and Aditya Sinha say capital makes products, not markets, and call for an innovation-buying chapter in government purchase rules, with paid pilots.
- ₹1trn
- RDI Fund corpus
Why it matters All three agree on the diagnosis: India now has money for deep tech, but not the people, links or first customers that turn prototypes into companies that stay Indian. The fix is plumbing, not bigger cheques.
Other side Merging labs and steering state purchases could add a new layer of bureaucracy, and government as first buyer can slide into protection, which the op-ed itself warns against. Can reforms this deep move faster than startups burn cash?
Also read: India's research and development ecosystem is in need a major overhaul. Here's why