India spent Rs 610 crore on R&D in atomic energy in 2004-05 though the former currently provides only 3 per cent of our power supply. To augment funding, the Planning Commission’s report on Integrated Energy Policy has recommended the setting up of a National Energy Fund (NEF), with an initial corpus of Rs 1000 crore, for R&D in the energy sector. It suggests a mandatory spending of 0.4 per cent of turnover by each company in the energy field.
