India's research ecosystem faces profound challenges rooted in bureaucratic inertia and risk aversion. Procurement processes exemplify this malaise: by the time approvals cascade through seven layers, vendors quote prices, purchase orders clear, equipment navigates customs, and installation finishes, 18 months have elapsed.

The once-cutting-edge technology now languishes on Amazon shelves. Scientists rush to publish papers, prototypes collect dust, and stakeholders merely tick boxes to declare grants "successfully utilised". This cycle perpetuates mediocrity in Indian research funding.

Enter the Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF), backed by ₹50,000 crore and lofty ambitions. The Prime Minister chairs its governing board, fuelling explicit comparisons to America's Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Yet scepticism abounds: what distinguishes ANRF from the existing alphabet soup of bodies like CSIR, DRDO, DBT, DST, and SERB?

India boasts undeniable triumphs. ISRO's cost-effective satellites, DRDO's strategic missiles, and the nation's vaccine manufacturing prowess during Covid stand as testaments to capability. Nevertheless, R&D spending has stagnated at around 0.7 per cent of GDP for two decades. A CAG audit revealed that 119 of DRDO's 178 high-priority projects missed deadlines, underscoring systemic delays.

The Kaveri engine program illustrates these pitfalls starkly. Launched in the 1990s, it devoured vast resources yet failed to yield a functional engine. The TEJAS aircraft eventually took to the skies only after integrating American engines, highlighting dependency on foreign technology.

ANRF's structure raises further concerns. It remains top-heavy with bureaucrats and politicians, lacking sufficient experienced scientists and industry experts at operational levels. DARPA thrives precisely because its 100-odd programme managers—drawn temporarily from academia and industry—wield authority to make swift decisions and terminate failing projects without convoluted justifications.

DARPA's success hinges on three pillars antithetical to Indian bureaucratic culture: extreme authority vested in individual programme managers; explicit embrace of failure as valuable intelligence; and exemption from standard government regulations. India institutionalises none of these.

Procurement woes persist as a core impediment. DARPA's 2004 Grand Challenge demanded autonomous vehicles navigate 150 miles across the Mojave Desert, with $1 million for the victor. Every entrant failed; the leader managed just 7.4 miles before striking a rock. In an Indian context, such an outcome would spark inquiries into "wasteful expenditure".

Undeterred, DARPA refined the challenge and rerun it in 2005. Five vehicles completed the course, catalysing the autonomous vehicle sector—birthing Google's self-driving cars, Tesla's Autopilot, and hundreds of billions in investments. This tolerance for initial wholesale failure, followed by iteration, defines breakthrough innovation—yet Indian audit mechanisms actively suppress it.

Envision an ANRF programme manager adopting this ethos. She spots a pivotal challenge and seeks to fund three rival teams. Conventional processes demand detailed RFPs, application waits, expert committees, criterion-based scoring, and rigorous defence of choices—a process spanning at least a year. By then, start-ups pivot, professors relocate, and firms secure Singaporean contracts.

DARPA bypasses such rigmarole. The program manager telephones a start-up: "I have $2 million for a prototype in 18 months." Contracts sign in weeks—no RFP, no committees, no mandated competition. Trust resides in the manager's judgement.

The UK's Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA) candidly echoes this. Its programme managers enjoy exemptions from public procurement rules, slashing timelines from months to weeks. ANRF craves comparable autonomy, demanding unwavering political resolve.

Resistance looms large. The Ministry of Finance will balk at financial rule exemptions; the Central Vigilance Commission frets over discretionary outlays; opposition parties insist on competitive bidding. Each objection holds merit, yet yielding to them dilutes ANRF into yet another prosaic funding conduit.

India eclipses all nations bar China in STEM graduates, yet musters merely 250 researchers per million people—versus 4,800 in the US and 5,400 in Germany. Indians helm US university research departments, lead Google and Microsoft labs, and clinch Nobels post-emigration. The crux: Indian research lacks allure as a career path.

ANRF could pivot this narrative by elevating program manager roles to prestigious, lucrative positions—₹100 crore budgets over three years, pursued with total autonomy. Empower them to hire globally, offer market salaries, and extend equity stakes. This necessitates shattering government pay scales, inviting parliamentary scrutiny—but the payoff justifies it.

Failure tolerance faces fierce cultural headwinds. Indian public life thrives on negative accountability, where blame's shadow dwarfs success's rewards. DARPA insists that universal success signals insufficient ambition.

Statutory safeguards prove essential: "no civil or criminal proceedings shall lie against any programme manager for decisions made in good faith in furtherance of the Foundation’s objectives." Absent this, the inaugural high-profile flop will compel managers toward safe, incremental bets.

DARPA shuns entrenched infrastructure, sourcing top talent and ideas globally for direct funding. ANRF requires analogous flexibility, courting inevitable pushback. CSIR labs, accustomed to ₹50 crore annual allotments, will resent ANRF funnelling ₹100 crore to start-ups. State governments will clamour for allocations, nudging toward redistribution over capability-building.

ANRF must steel against these pressures. By pinpointing five or six grand challenges—energy independence, water purification, advanced manufacturing—it could forge impact. Moonshot pursuits like grid-scale storage or ultra-low-cost solar promise transformation, where failure looms large but triumph reshapes futures.

The stark alternative beckons: ANRF devolves into a mundane grant dispenser, issuing proposal calls, tallying publications, and birthing inconsequential research. A decade on, observers lament stagnant R&D transformation despite infusions.

Should ANRF launch radically and weather early failures' backlash, it might emerge as India's innovation lifeline—finally aligning ambition with execution.

IDN (With Agency Inputs)