A group of India’s leading climate scientists has warned that the country has almost lost the ability to build its own scientific instruments, leaving its climate observations dependent on imported equipment that is often run uncalibrated for years. This has led to “incorrect data being reported in national and international journals, often leading to questions on the credibility of Indian science,” they said.

In the same report, the researchers also called for long-term studies to evaluate the climate consequences of the “uncontrolled” growth of renewable energy installations, warning that the effects of large solar and wind plants on the climate remain “poorly understood.” 

The warning appeared in the Mega Science Vision-2035 (MSV) report on Climate Research, a roadmap prepared by the Indian climate research community with the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, as the nodal institution, and submitted to the Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser (PSA) to the Union government. The report was made public earlier this week.

Atmanirbhar challenges

The warning on instruments sits awkwardly with the government’s drive for “atmanirbhar” or self-reliance. To boost domestic manufacturing, the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) portal was made mandatory for public scientific institutions, requiring procurement from the lowest-bidding India-registered vendor.

As The Hindu has reported, scientists found this a stumbling block when they needed customised equipment built to high-quality standards, with GeM vendors often unable to meet such specifications and the alternative — a global tender — entailing long bureaucratic delays. In June 2025, the Finance Ministry rolled back some of the rules amid complaints over sub-standard materials, allowing designated institutions to bypass GeM and empowering their heads to clear global tenders of up to ₹200 crore.

The warning also lands at a time when India is already facing the harmful effects of the warming climate, from intensifying heatwaves and erratic monsoons to accelerating Himalayan glacier melt — the very trends that reliable, well-calibrated observations are meant to track.

Long-term planning

The MSV exercise, historically used to plan large, long-horizon projects in fields such as nuclear and high-energy physics, was for the first time extended to climate research, ecology and astronomy, and was facilitated by the PSA’s office under Professor Ajay K. Sood. A working group chaired by IISc Professor S.K. Satheesh and former INCOIS director S.S.C. Shenoi drew on consultations with about 3,200 researchers; comments from 68 of them and a panel of 35 national and international experts shaped the draft, which was then reviewed by the PSA and the Ministry of Earth Sciences.

The document is explicit that it is a “CR [climate research] community document” reflecting the community’s “hopes and aspirations,” and that its projects are “indicative”. This means that it is neither a mandatory prescription nor a statement of government policy or funding.

Consequences of ‘uncontrolled’ renewables

On the energy transition, the report recommended devising “scientific methods to estimate the social cost of carbon [i.e., the cost of damages from an extra ton of CO2]” and a mechanism to implement the “polluter pays” principle to stop the atmosphere being used as “a dumping ground” for emissions, while seeking ways to “offset the effects of the carbon tax on the poor.”

The scientists’ justification for studying “uncontrolled” renewables is cautionary rather than sceptical. The report said that while “renewable energy seems to be the right solution to replace polluting energy sources, studies are needed to understand the long-term consequences of the uncontrolled tapping of natural resources.” The scientists, however, underlined that renewables “should be given priority so that the momentum gained in the last five years is not lost.” India has pledged 500 GW of non-fossil capacity by 2030, and crossed the halfway mark on installed electricity capacity from non-fossil sources in 2025, ahead of its Paris target.

Mega projects to bridge gaps

The report identified several other gaps and priorities. It called for an indigenous Earth System Model built “from first principles”, distinct from existing Indian models which have been “mainly adapted from the USA or Europe.” It flagged inadequate research on clean energy, carbon capture, and storage; weak integration of environmental surveillance data with health data; the absence of a framework to embed climate concerns across public policy; and a shortage of training to communicate climate science to decision-makers.

To deliver these, it proposed eight “mega projects” — spanning observatories, satellites, in-situ networks, field campaigns, indigenous sensors, carbon-neutrality research and adaptation science — phased across three roughly five-year blocks until 2035. The line-item costs total about ₹795 crore under a “modest growth” scenario and about ₹1,359 crore under an “aspirational” one, modest by the standards of flagship missions, and left to the scientific community to “self-organise” and realise.