The Indian government’s new Research, Development and Innovation Fund faces questions over transparency after its initial ₹2,192 crore support was largely awarded to firms linked to its own selection committee members, raising concerns about governance and fairness in the financing of frontier technologies.
India’s new Research, Development and Innovation Fund is under scrutiny after its first major round of support steered ₹2,192 crore in soft loans to 22 private companies across sectors from space systems and semiconductors to robotics and energy storage. According to reporting by The Indian Express, 15 of those companies have ties to seven members of the selection committee, and the overlaps account for more than ₹1,377 crore, or about 62% of the total disbursed in the first tranche.
The controversy matters because the fund was created to provide long-term, low-cost public financing for technologies that are often too risky for ordinary markets. The government launched the programme in November 2025 with an ambition to speed up private-sector deep-tech research in fields such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, defence, clean energy and digital health. Implementation was handed to the Technology Development Board and the Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council, with the Technology Development Board setting up a 12-member investment committee to review applications.
In the first round, 124 applications were received and 22 companies were approved. Science and Technology Minister Jitendra Singh told Parliament on 30 July that seven committee members had disclosed financial interests in selected companies. The ministry later insisted the process was merit-based, and that any member with a relevant link had no role in reviewing or approving that proposal.
That defence has been repeated publicly. In statements carried by the Press Information Bureau and reported by The Economic Times and The Times of India, officials said the framework rests on disclosure, recusal and technical evaluation, and that professional or investment links do not automatically amount to a disqualifying conflict if they are declared and the person concerned steps aside. Rajesh Pathak, secretary of the Technology Development Board, has argued that such conflicts are manageable within the system.
Still, the scale of the overlap has fuelled concerns about whether disclosure alone is enough when public money is being allocated to firms already inside the same venture networks as the decision-makers. The Indian Express said the chairman of the committee, Saurabh Srivastava, is linked to nine of the recipients, including one company in which he holds a personal equity stake. Other selected firms were linked through fund holdings, directorships or previous roles, including names such as Tejas Networks, Ather Energy, Agnikul Cosmos, Manastu Space and Dhruva Space.
The government has pointed to the second batch of 13 companies as evidence that the process is tightening, saying only one had a member stake. Even so, the first round has exposed a broader governance question: whether a public deep-tech fund can rely on the same investment circles it is meant to counterbalance. The answer will shape not only confidence in the RDI Fund, but also how India designs future public capital programmes that are meant to support frontier technology without appearing to favour the well connected.
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