JOIN USNITI Aayog Member V K Saraswat on Friday said that innovation is the key to global competitiveness, new and better jobs, a resilient economy, and the attainment of essential national goals.
Delivering the keynote on the second day of the ‘Eleventh India Innovation Summit 2015’ organised by CII, Saraswat said “A strategy is clearly needed to direct our government’s funding and regulatory decisions in order to capture the innovation opportunity.”
Sustained innovation will drive a dynamic evolution in the nation’s workforce towards better paying jobs. Workers making innovation-induced shifts to new jobs within and across industries will receive the transition and training necessary to ensure no one is left behind, he said.
To create a strong research and development (R&D) base, Saraswat made two suggestions, “One, double the R&D budget of key science agencies, namely, CSIR, S&T, Space, Defence, DRDO, Earth Science, ICMR, ACAR and others with minimum allocation of three per cent of GDP.” Second, he wanted a tax credit arrangement on R&D as a permanent feature to ensure higher investments from the private sector.