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Friday, April 09, 2010

Sustainable Development Technology Canada

SD Tech Fund provides grants to commercial firms in Canada at pre-commercial stage. Another fund `Next Gen Biofuels fund' is targeted to bridge the Capital Expenditure gap. Rational for goverenment intervention is given at http://www.sdtc.ca/en/about/innovation_chain.htm
We planned similar initiatives in India- where is the difference?
1. First difference is in scale- Canadian Budget is $500 million in each case, DSIR's PATSER/ TDDP spends about Rs 5 crore annually.
2. The conviction of public good in providing public funds for private R&D was not shared widely with the result when the decision has to be taken on failed R&D projects, the departments DIT, TIFAC , CSIR, DSIR chose to close the programs or slow down. The government needs amendment to General Finance Rules to account for failed R&D projects.
3. DSIR started `Waste to wealth program' to bridge the CAPEX gap but had to be abandoned due to limited acceptance of the modality.
We declared current decade as Innovation Decade- is it not time to start a large fund to support Indian firms at pre-commercial stage?

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