Government may bring institutions or tools for Rs 100-crore R&D arsenal: Exclusive interview with Sitharaman

Experts say one of the key ideas in the Narendra Modi government’s interim budget is to announce an allocation of Rs 100 crore to provide interest-free or low-interest loans for research and innovation. In an exclusive interview with Network18 Group Editor-in-Chief Rahul Joshi on Friday, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that this is not the first time this has happened.

“Earlier, there were also multiple funds in different departments, like the science and technology department. They had, CSIR, their own… funds spread everywhere. You had them doing activities to support innovation from their respective perspectives. Two years ago, I remember The National Research Foundation was announced to bring all these dispersed resources into one pool. From there, each department can apply for whatever funding they want to fund innovation support activities,” she said.

But the minister said the government will now bring in an agency or an instrument that can accept this Rs 100 crore and the funds will be provided to them in total as an interest-free principal amount over the next few years. “Using this, they can identify innovation-related activities going on in the private sector and fund them. I would probably give the corpus this 50-year interest-free loan, but the administrator of the fund would decide what The cost is to whom this loan is provided. The cost may vary based on risk factors and the judgment of the management professional. But this is certainly a fund that supports private innovation,” Sitharaman said.

Asked why the government is not doing well on disinvestment in public sector undertakings (PSUs), the finance minister said the issue needs to be included in the framework she has framed on the PSU policy issue.

“If a policy framework has been announced and we have said that only core strategic sectors recognized by the government, the government will have a minimal role in these sectors and even in these sectors, the private sector will be allowed or it will be completely liberalized , get them fully involved, in the sense that there will not be any single department including the core strategic departments, which will be reserved exclusively for the public sector, so consolidation will have to be done to make them big enough for a big country like India ,”she says.

The minister added that efficiency must be improved to increase its value.

“I’m not going to overturn any decision that has been approved by Cabinet, but at the same time, you should probably also note that with every decision, we’re trying to make sure that we don’t allow them to stay there until they disinvest. Likewise, we’re working on Trying to make sure that their valuations remain the same. They have improved. If you look at the public sector listed companies in the market today and their valuations, you can see the energy that has been injected into them. The share prices have gone up and the dividends have gone up. It was much better before. So, disinvestment is one thing, but bringing value to them and ensuring that the market is absolutely in their favor,” Sitharaman said.

Investment is happening, she noted. “The PLI scheme is also helping them. So investment in new areas does have a slightly longer gestation period. Their brownfield projects don’t seem to be getting additional funding. That’s happening too. But now there is real interest in sunrise sectors It’s obvious. People are interested and you’ll see them coming forward,” the minister told News18.