Foreign Technology in Public Enterprises

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the economic conditions under which Indian Public Sector Enterprises purchase technology from abroad and second the efforts made by them to indigenise and develop local capabilities. The paper first develops a consistent series of data on direct cost of technology import at aggregate and at thirteen subsector levels. The relationship between technology import and domestic R&D is then examined through a log-linear test. These results are then compared with those obtained from a similar exercise which employs an RBI data set.