For the first time, India expects foreign direct investment (FDI) for research and development (R&D) work in the pharmaceutical sector.
The inflow could reach 15 to 20 million dollar in next three to four years, according to Union minister for chemical and fertiliser Suresh Prabhu.
Prabhu who was here to attend a seminar on fertiliser industry told newsmen that the government is readying a comprehensive drug policy keeping in view the developments in the pharmaceutical field world over.
Particularly, progress in human gene mapping and genomics have opened up new avenues for research in the country where the task of providing healthcare to the people is enormous.
He said, in deference to those changing needs, the government has allocated Rs 150 care for creation of research and development fund to service the pharmaceutical industry in the last Union budget.
Money from this corpus will be provided as soft loan to private entrepreneurs for establishing drug related R&D centres all over the country.
The government has set up a high level committee headed by CSIR chief Mashellkar to oversee the proper utilisation of the fund, he said and added that the objective of creating the fund is to encourage inflow of private investments both from within the country and outside for research and development work in the pharmaceutical field.
Prabhu said the Centre has not yet taken any decision on location of two share-based mega petro-chem projects to be set up one each in east and west coast though seven littoral states including Orissa have approached the Centre for locating the units within their respective territory.
He said the proposed ventures envisaging investment of eight to nine billion dollars each will be composite complexes with facilities for cracking, reflaming, manufacturing downstream products and power generation.
Various multilateral agencies including IFC have shown interest in the projects announcement about which was made in the US recently.
Meanwhile, he said, the government has set up a task force under planning commission member M.S. Alhuwalia to formulate a comprehensive policy for the petro-chem sector.
