India's R&D spending at 0.83% of GDP, outlets report

India's research and development expenditure stood at 0.83 per cent of GDP, well below the 2.7 per cent recorded in OECD economies, Business Standard and The Hindu BusinessLine reported. The same reports said the private sector accounted for only 36 per cent of the country's total R&D expenditure, underlining the gap between India and the OECD grouping on innovation spending. This comparison was reported in the context of capital expenditure for FY27, which Business Standard and The Hindu BusinessLine reported had been budgeted at Rs 12.22 lakh crore.

Taken together, the two figures reported by Business Standard and The Hindu BusinessLine placed public capital spending plans for FY27 alongside the current state of India's R&D spending relative to OECD economies. The R&D figures reported by the two outlets also showed that more than three-fifths of India's total R&D expenditure came from outside the private sector, based on the 36 per cent share attributed to private firms. Business Standard and The Hindu BusinessLine did not report any change to the Rs 12.22 lakh crore capital expenditure figure budgeted for FY27 in their coverage.

The 0.83 per cent of GDP figure for India's R&D expenditure, as reported by Business Standard and The Hindu BusinessLine, remained more than three times lower than the 2.7 per cent figure reported for OECD economies. Both the R&D expenditure data and the FY27 capital expenditure figure were reported by Business Standard and The Hindu BusinessLine without further breakdown by sector or ministry.