FOREIGN CAPITAL IN INDIA 5 foreign technical collaboration agreements in force on April 1, 1964. It also covers such agreements as came into effect thereafter provided they had obtained government approval by March 31.1970."8 Between 1960-61 and 1969-70 ordinary share capital held abroad increased from Rs 985 to Rs 1895 million in subsidiaries, whereas the same in Indian companies with minority foreign participation rose from Rs 441 to 1163 million; the percentage share of foreigners in the total equity of these two groups of companies were 70.8 and 30.3 respectively in 1969-70. Thus the total equity for the corresponding groups works out to Rs 2677 and Rs 3838 million and assets to Rs 10,448 and Rs 17,646 million/ indicating that the minority companies had a greater control over resources than subsidiaries.5 Besides, the former grew at a somewhat higher pace than the latter during the 1960s. Insofar as foreigners hold as much as 30 per cent of equity in the minority companies, they may be expected to have a major say in the affairs of these companies. Regarding Indian companies with foreign technical collaboration but no financial participation whatsoever, only data on sales and value added are available; these amounted to Rs 7050 and Rs 2381 million respectively in 1969-70. Measurement of Control The Reserve Bank survey also shows that relatively few firms had any research and development (R & D ) activities at all. Among 197 subsidiaries only 80 had such a department; the corresponding figures for minority companies were 433 and 144 and for purely technical collaboration companies 247 and 84. Thus barely one-third of companies had any such activities. Out of a total of 400,000 persons engaged in all companies with foreign collaboration in 1969-70, R & D personnel made up a mere 2.1 per cent; this ratio was as low as 1.4 per cent for purely technical collaboration companies, 2.4 per cent for minority companies and 2.5 per cent for subsidiaries. Perhaps the main accent of R & D departments was on import substitution.6 Yet given the small expenditure, it is doubtful whether the companies could make any significant headway towards technological independence, though they might succeed in replacing some foreign components, raw materials and so forth. This point should not be carried too far. A company may depend totally on its foreign collaborator for the duration of the agreement in respect of know-how, equipment and the like. Even if it is unable to expand substantially or diversify on its own effort, it may call in help from local consultants as well as from some other foreign party. Hence it would be misleading to lump together ^purely technical collaboration companies' with minority companies or foreign subsidiaries. In order to avoid overstating the extent of foreign control in Indian industry, the first group should be regarded as free from foreign control. How does one measure the overall extent of foreign capital? One measure which is quite popular in the literature, is the share of the