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Former Divestment Minister said that India has successfully made optimum use of scarce financial resources in science and technology, sending satellites into space and enabling patients of epidemics like AIDS to buy cheap drugs, while noting that the country's infrastructure and bureaucracy needed to improve.
His views, expressed in the keynote address on the opening day of the three-day conference of IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) graduates in Washington on Friday, were endorsed by another speaker at the global meet, General Electric founder Jack Welch. Both praised the contribution of the IIT graduates to India and the US.
Shourie pointed out that India was able to achieve much with very little resources compared to the US.
For example, he said the whole space budget of India is $475 million a year, and contrast this with the $7 billion that General Motors alone spends on research each year.
With such a small budget, he said, India has sent up 20 satellites. "We are now leaders in remote-sensing. We are second only to the United States in optical resolution of satellites."
Vaccines are now being sold for 50 cents because they are now produced in India, Shourie said.
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"Treatment of AIDS, which western companies sold for $20,000 a year are now sold by Indian pharmaceutical companies in South Africa for $50," he noted.
Indian industry recognised that it had to change its ways to stay competitive in a globalised world and are now investing in research and new technologies, he said.
Welch, who was among the earliest western business leaders to see potential in India and has operations in the country, shared Shourie's enthusiasm but felt that two factors are still holding India back: infrastructure and ways of the bureaucracy.
Welch said when he told people that India must increase its power supply, he had to convince them that he was not saying so because GE wanted to sell electrical equipment in India.
Shourie agreed that more must be done to make bureaucrats "move faster."
Speakers pointed out that 40 per cent of all IIT graduates are now working in the US.