PLI scheme in R&D needed to make India global innovation hub: Deloitte

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Posted by NewAdmin on 2025-03-25 09:16:25 |

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The Budget 2025-26 should announce a PLI scheme for R&D to attract foreign companies and make India a global hub for innovation, said Deloitte India Partner (Direct Tax) Rohinton Sidhwa. He said the government has been pursuing a policy wherein tax holidays are less and more focus is on Production Linked Incentive (PLI) or other schemes which promote investment and employment.

"We need to push India as the R&D lab of the world and if there can be such a policy which stimulates that, like PLI for R&D which includes foreign companies, that could be a game changer," Sidhwa told PTI in an interview.The Budget for 2025-26 will be presented in Parliament on February 1. Sidhwa said that one area which the government needs to look at is how to stimulate innovation and reward R&D spending and that would happen only when the country is able to attract global R&D centres into India.

"If we can develop our own R&D, we are less reliant on developed world for technology and that is also import substitution. Something around innovation and R&D is definitely called for and I'm hoping that the government will look at rolling out a PLI for R&D," he said.

Sidhwa said if the Budget can announce a policy that specifically rewards global companies to come to India, that will boost FDI. India is a service economy and if that is nurtured, it can be a significant forex earner, he said.Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the Interim Budget for 2024-25 on February 1, 2024, announced setting up a mechanism for spurring private sector-driven research and innovation at commercial scale with a financing pool of Rs 1 lakh crore.

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