Voicing concern over India lagging in innovation, President Pranab Mukherjee today made a strong pitch to step up expenditure on research in a big way and also asked the private sector to increase their share.

“India’s bottom line is not very encouraging as the number of patent applications filed annually in leading countries like the US and China is roughly 12 times that of our country,” he said addressing the National Technology Day function here.

The National Technology Day is celebrated to commemorate a series of controlled underground nuclear tests conducted by India on May 11 and May 13, 1998 at Pokhran.

Mukherjee said India spent only 0.9 per cent of the GDP on research and development, which was much below that of China, UK and Israel.

“We should step up our expenditure on research to pursue innovation in a big way,” he said at the function attended by Science and Technology Minister S Jaipal Reddy, a number of scientists, entrepreneurs and students.

He said the private sector, which contributed one-fourth of the country’s expenditure on research and development, should also increase their share of spending to levels prevalent in countries such as Japan, the US and South Korea.

“We must make sure we have the capacity to compete, to innovate and to deliver on time. If our systems are strong and robust, the world will respect us and be willing to work with us,” Mukherjee said.

He said the capacity to innovate has to become a part and parcel of India’s growth and development process.

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