There has been a recent spate of nanotechnology-related announcements coming out of India, including a new investment platform for new and emerging companies and a new facility at IIT Bombay donated by Applied Materials.

Contained within the former announcement is reference to the Indian government starting a five-year national mission called the Nano Science and Technology Mission (NSTM) with an upfront investment of Rs 1,000 crore (US$254,322,838), which translates to nearly $51 million for each year of the plan.

This seems to be a strong and competitive investment, but anyone paying attention to nanotechnology in India will recall that the last bit of appropriated funds (Rs 200 crore for the 2005-2006 budgets) for the NSTM went largely unspent as chronicled on this blog .

What seems to be missing in all of these new announcements is some plan to not let the mistakes of the recent past happen again. Itâ''s fairly easy to pick a number for funding, but actually spending it (never mind wisely) seems to be the problem.