Number of patents sealed in India on decline: CAG

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, AUG. 12. A review by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India has revealed that all is not well with the science and technology sector, with even a decline in the expenditure on research and development over the past decade. According to a CAG report submitted to Parliament recently, while in absolute terms research and development expenditure had increased by 232 per cent between 1989-90 and 1999-2000, in terms of percentage of the Gross National Product, it had actually declined by the 22 basis points during the 10 year period.

The report has also highlighted that the number of patents sealed in India had declined marginally from 1,890 in 1989-90 to 1,881 in 1999-2000, with the proportion of patents sealed in the name of foreign agencies and individuals continuing to be much higher than that by Indians.

In addition, it has brought out that research papers published by laboratories under the Central and State Governments and in-house R&D units of public and private sector units have declined from 50,592 in 1994 to 42,263 in 1998. The decline was particularly sharp in areas such as agriculture, biological sciences, earth sciences and engineering, while in other applied areas such as chemical sciences, physical sciences and medical sciences it was almost stagnant.

The review has further revealed that barring a few exceptions, none of the scientific departments had fully spent even the meagre funds that were allotted to them - out of the total provision of Rs. 11,447 crores allocated for the science and technology sector as a whole, Rs. 674 crores or 5.86 per cent of the allocation was found to be unspent during the financial year 1999-2000.

The report also raps several scientific agencies for various omissions and commissions. The agencies indicted include the Indian Institute of Petroleum (IIP) and the National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) under the CSIR, and the National Institute of Virology under the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR).

The Dehradun-based IIP has been pulled up for not having a proper budgetary system in place and for failing to recover royalty/license fee worth a total of Rs. 2.94 crores in 16 cases, out of the 23 technologies that were transferred for commercialisation during 1994-2000.

The NIO has been taken to task for focussing more on sponsored projects and deploying scientists for infrastructural activities instead of research, thus diluting the thrust on basic research. ``48 to 58 per cent of the scientists were not involved in publishing any research papers. Of the 39 patents filed, neither any patent was granted in the name of the institute, nor any technology was commercialised,'' says the report.

As for the NIV, the report has pointed out that a project conceived as early as 1977 for handling hazardous viruses and to serve as a strong deterrent against biological warfare, has not been completed even after 23 years and after spending Rs. 13 crores, ``due to lack of conviction, unplanned execution, improper monitoring system and haphazard implementation''.

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