New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement of setting up a Rs 1 lakh crore corpus as the ‘Research, Development, and Innovation (RDI)’ fund Monday aims to power India’s march to become a global leader in R&D.
ThePrint explains how this fund will be managed, disbursed, and advance India’s R&D ambitions.
“RDI scheme will be a game changer in the world of research and innovation,” PM Modi said at Monday’s Emerging Science Technology and Innovation Conclave (ESTIC) inaugural ceremony.
The PM said the corpus would have a “major impact on emerging and sunrise sectors”, while also boosting private-sector participation.
Objectives
Senior officials from the Department of Science & Technology (DST) told ThePrint that the primary objective of RDI fund would be to encourage the private sector to scale up research, especially in sunrise sectors and other areas considered significant to India’s economic security, strategic purposes, and self-reliance.
India’s sunrise sectors include emerging industries with high growth potential—including biotechnology, artificial intelligence (AI), electric vehicles (EV), renewable energy, and semiconductors.
This fund will facilitate transformative tech projects to reach a level validated in a laboratory environment (Technology Readiness Level 4 or higher). TRL in India is a nine-level scale, used to measure and assess the maturity of a technology from its basic principles to full-scale deployment.
It will also support the acquisition of technologies critical to high strategic performance and facilitate the establishment of a dedicated deep-tech fund.
The RDI fund was approved with an outlay of Rs 1 lakh crore for six years.
This fund, a flagship initiative under the Centre’s DST, will accelerate investment in India’s R&D and innovation ecosystem.
“(The RIDF) shall support private sector enterprises, startups, and industries working in sunrise and strategic sectors to transform ideas into globally competitive technologies and products,” an RDI fund document read.
How will it work?
The DST will assess two aspects—the disbursal of funds under the RDI fund, relying on the nature and quantum of financing.
The funds will be released as low-interest, long-term loans and equity financing—especially for start-ups. Financing will be limited to not more than 50 percent of the total assessed project cost. The balance will have to be arranged by the project proponent through either self-funding or through commercial sources of funds.
According to the documents detailing the scheme, the Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF) will make the RDI fund operational through a special purpose fund.
The consolidated funds will be released as SPF within the ANRRF, and soon, will be undertaken by fund managers, such as alternate investment funds (AIFs), development finance institutions (DFIs), non-banking finance companies (NBFCs), and focused research organisations (FROs), including Technology Development Board (TDB), BIRAC, and IIT research parks.
“The entire process will work as a well-oiled machine. With each stage, we will be pushing the private players to become more self-reliant and eventually be able to support themselves financially and also extend support to newer players,” a senior DST official said.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)