A parliamentary panel reviewing India's technology schemes has flagged persistent underutilisation of funds and implementation delays across several major initiatives, including the India AI Mission, semiconductor programme, and production-linked incentive (PLI) schemes.
The panel observed that India AI Mission has seen relatively low utilisation of funds despite substantial allocations, with actual spending remaining significantly lower than allocated amounts.
The committee noted that the ministry attributed this to the mission being in its early stages of implementation, but expressed concerns about the development of a sovereign AI model due to high hardware costs, global supply chain delays, and other issues.
The panel also noted India's "abysmal" expenditure of 0.64% of its GDP on research and development, which is below the global average.
Among other schemes reviewed by the panel was the Modified Programme for Development of Semiconductors and Display Manufacturing Ecosystem in India, a flagship initiative aimed at establishing domestic chip manufacturing capacity.
The committee noted that utilisation of funds has been slower than expected, with delays linked to the complexity of semiconductor projects and the time required to finalise agreements with companies.
