Rs 1 Lakh Crore Tech Research Fund: A Game Changer for India

New Delhi, Feb 1 (PTI) Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Thursday said the interim budget announcement of Rs 1 lakh crore corpus for research in technology is a "game changer" as it would boost technology development projects and propel India as a product nation.

The contours of the corpus and its selection criteria will be spelt out over the coming days, Vaishnaw, who is the Minister for Electronics and IT, told reporters.

Vaishnaw said the focus will be on selecting certain projects initially and thereafter moving onto a proposal based system through which products and technologies can be selected with clearly-defined goalposts and deliverables.

Briefing media on the interim Budget announcements, the minister said the corpus would enable India to build on its strengths of its talent pool, sophisticated technical capabilities, and move ahead to develop products.

"A very big decision has been taken today by launching Rs 1 lakh crore corpus for developing new technologies. This is going to be a game changer for our country," Vaishnaw said.

He also said that technology and product development projects will get a boost with this fund.

"Technology development projects will get a way by which the country can really become a product nation," the minister said.

He observed that entrepreneurs and startups will get an opportunity to create products with the establishment of the fund.

Presenting the interim Budget on Thursday, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman promised "a golden era" for the tech-savvy youth.

"For our tech savvy youth, this will be a golden era. A corpus of rupees one lakh crore will be established with fifty-year interest free loan. The corpus will provide long-term financing or refinancing with long tenors and low or nil interest rates," she said.

Further, she said the move will encourage the private sector to scale up research and innovation significantly in sunrise domains.

"We need to have programmes that combine the powers of our youth and technology," she asserted.