India will take 163 years to match China's R&D

12 Feb 2007, 1216 hrs IST,PTINEW DELHI: India will take 163 years to match the scientific workforce of China if it continues to add researchers at the current rate, a mathematician has claimed. According to the 2002-03 figures, China had 8.5 lakh workers in the research and development sector as against 1.15 lakh in India. "Just to catch up with what China is today: 7,35,000 scientists to be added at 4,500 per year, it will take us 163 years," Gangan Prathap, scientist-in-charge of the Centre for Mathematical Modelling and Computer Simulation, Bangalore said in the latest issue of journal Current Science . The statistics state that India annually produces some 4,500 doctorates as against 40,000 PhDs in China every year. Prathap said his calculations were on the assumption that China does not add any scientists to its R&D workforce and India continues to add at the rate of 4,500 a year. India spent $3.7 billion on science as against China's $15.5 billion R&D budget for 2002-03. Chinese scientists produced 50,000 research papers that were cited by peers in their studies as against 19,500 by India. The Ministry of Science and Technology is seeking a five-fold increase in budget allocation in the 11th Five Year Plan. It has also unveiled a Rs 1,350-crore plan to attract students to science.

read more | digg story