Why in the News
An investigation found that a large share of soft loans under the Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) Fund went to firms linked to the fund’s own selection panel. The tension is between fast tracking private deep tech financing and preserving impartial public fund governance.
What is the Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) Fund?
- Corpus: A Rs 1 lakh crore fund to provide low cost, long tenure financing for private research and deep technology.
- Anchor body: It operates under the Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF) framework, with the Technology Development Board (TDB) disbursing loans.
What is the conflict of interest concern?
- Panel linkage: Members of the selection panel had financial ties to firms that received public funding.
- Concentration: A majority of the sanctioned loans went to entities connected to those approving them.
What safeguards does the government cite?
- Super majority: Approvals require a super majority of the selection committee.
- Stake disqualification: Members holding a stake above a threshold are barred from that decision.
- Cost cap: Public funding is capped at a share of total project cost.
- Disclosure: Members must declare any negative interest before voting.
Why does the safeguard design still draw scrutiny?
- Small expert pool: India’s narrow deep tech expert base makes overlaps between funders and funded hard to avoid.
- Verification gap: Declared interests need independent audit to prevent capture.