New Delhi — India plans to set up a quasi-independent National Science and Engineering Research Board, on the model of the National Science Foundation in the United States, and will double financing for science and technology, to 2 percent from the current 1 percent of gross domestic product, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Wednesday, reported The Telegraph and the Indo Asian News Service.

The board “will provide unfettered financial assistance to researchers, academic institutions, research laboratories, and industrial concerns,” Mr. Singh said. The board will be autonomous, with its own budget and members who will have the power to decide which projects are to be financed, an unnamed government official told The Telegraph.

Research in science and engineering here is backed by both government and industry, and researchers have often complained that government agencies, like the country’s university regulator, take months to consider proposals. Industry is increasingly the main supporter of research at universities, but industry-backed research is mostly oriented to the market. “The projects funded by the board will not cater only to industry,” the government official said. “But the board will also ensure that valuable public funding is not spent on researching obscure ideas with little larger relevance.”

Stating that newly industrializing nations like China and South Korea have “leapfrogged ahead of us by their mastery of science and technology,” Mr. Singh said Indian universities and research institutes should be revitalized to better compete with the rest of the world. —Shailaja Neelakantan