Over ₹3,000 cr. That is a conservative estimate of what India's research-funding ecosystem could be losing annually to duplicate grants alone. A 2013 US analysis, 'Same work, twice the money?' of nearly 8,60,000 funded grants estimated that duplicate funding could account for up to 2.5% of research expenditure. Applied to India's 2020-21 gross expenditure on R&D (GERD), that amounts to roughly ₹3,175 cr (about $375 mn). But duplication is only one symptom of a deeper problem. India has no reliable way to see, in one place, what publicly funded research ultimately produces.
Every year, GoI invests thousands of crores in research through national funding agencies, such as SERB (Science and Engineering Research Board), DST (Department of Science and Technology), DBT (Department of Biotechnology), ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research), and ANRF (Anusandhan National Research Foundation). Yet, once a grant is awarded, there is no system that continuously tracks what it produces.
