One of the big ideas of the Narendra Modi government’s interim budget, experts say, has been the announcement of a corpus of Rs 1 lakh crore to provide interest-free or low-interest loans for research and innovation. Speaking about it in an exclusive interview with Network18 Group Editor-in-Chief Rahul Joshi on Friday, union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said this is not something that is happening for the first time.

“Earlier, too, there were several funds within different departments, like the science and technology. They had, CSIR, its own… Funds were all over the place. You had them doing supportive activities for innovation, each from their own side. Two years ago, I remember announcing the National Research Foundation which brought together all these thinly spread resources to one pool. And from there each of the departments would claim whatever they would want to fund in terms of innovation-supportive activities,” she said.

But the government would now bring in an institution or a vehicle, said the minister, which can take this Rs 1 lakh crore, which will be given to them in next few years in total as an interest-free corpus amount. “Using that, they can then identify innovation-related exercises which are happening in private sector and fund them. I may give this interest-free 50-year loan to the corpus, but the managers of that fund will then decide to whom at what cost should they give it. The cost may vary depending on the risk factors and the judgment of the professionals who manage it. But it’s certainly a fund from where private innovation will be supported,” said Sitharaman.

Asked why the government has seemingly underperformed in the disinvestment of public sector undertakings (PSUs), the finance minister said that issue needs to be put into the frame laid by her in the matter of public sector enterprise policy.

“If a policy framework has been announced, and in that we have said that there are only core strategic sectors, which government recognises, where the government will be having a minimal presence and even in those sectors, private sector will be allowed to, or it will be completely open for them to participate in total, in the sense, there will not be any one sector inclusive of the core strategic sector, which will be exclusively reserved for public sector, whereby consolidation will have to happen to make them big enough for a big country like India,” she said.

Efficiencies will have to be brought in, their values will have to be increased, added the minister.

“I will not reverse any of the cabinet-approved decisions, but at the same time, you should probably also have noticed that for each of them, we are working to make sure, we are not allowing them to remain there, till they are getting disinvested. Equally, we are working to make sure that their valuations are kept up. They are improved upon. That if you look at the public sector listed companies and their valuation in the market today, you see the kind of vibrancy which has been brought into them. The share values have gone up, the dividends are even much better than earlier. So, disinvestment is one thing, but bringing value to them and make sure that the markets look at them absolutely favourably,” Sitharaman said.

There is investment happening, she pointed out. “The PLI scheme is also helping them. So investments in newer areas do have a slightly longer gestation period. It’s not as if their brownfield projects are getting additional money. That also is happening. But the interest in the sunrise sector is really obvious now. People are taking a lot of interest and you’re seeing them coming forward,” the minister told News18.