India spent 0.84% of gross domestic product on research and development in 2023-24, while national capital-spending estimates show the investment scale but not whether investors back individual projects.
The Department of Science and Technology (DST) reported ₹244,767.81 crore in gross R&D expenditure for 2023-24 in its Research & Development Statistics at a Glance 2025-26. Private-sector industry accounted for 45.2% of the total. The report lists ₹79,355.89 crore in 2013-14; both amounts are nominal.
A separate estimate from the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) put private corporate capital expenditure at ₹11,43,879 crore for 2025-26. The ministry estimated investment intentions of ₹9,55,281 crore for 2026-27 and said companies tend to report future plans conservatively. Its survey estimated that internal accruals would finance 65.35% of private corporate capital spending in 2025-26, while domestic debt would account for 23.25%. These aggregate estimates do not measure investor support for any particular company’s plans.
A Nov. 8 Livemint column described meetings involving two pharmaceutical companies where investors asked executives about free cash flow, debt ratios and return on equity as they discussed research spending. In another example, Livemint said an unnamed auto-parts supplier’s battery venture might absorb, over three years, an amount comparable to the company’s investment over the preceding half-century; the column said its dividends could fall to zero.
Livemint did not identify the companies, executives or investors in those examples. The anecdotes illustrate a possible tension between financing long-term projects and meeting nearer-term expectations for cash flow, debt and dividends, but the column did not establish how widespread the response is.
MoSPI said its CAPEX 2026 survey runs from October through December, collecting information on past spending, current estimates and future investment plans. The ministry has not specified when it will publish the results.
