Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh says, NIDHI program under DST has various components to support innovations, startups and startup incubation ecosystem in the country

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Last Updated09/08/2023

Recently, the Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Science & Technology informed that in order to foster innovation among the startups in the country, the Department of Science & Technology launched an umbrella program NIDHI in 2016.

Launched in 2016, it is an umbrella programme conceived and developed by the Innovation & Entrepreneurship division, Department of Science & Technology.
Objective: To nurture start-ups through scouting, supporting and scaling innovations.
Key Stakeholders: Various departments and ministries of the central government, state governments, academic and R & D institutions, mentors, financial institutions, angel investors, venture capitalists and private sectors.
Funding: National Science & Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board (NSTEDB).
It has been helpful in creating state-of-the-art infrastructure for incubating startups in technology sectors through Technology Business Incubators (TBIs) and Centres of Excellence (CoE).

The NIDHI- PRAYAS (Promoting and Accelerating Young and Aspiring Innovators and Startups) program at Proof-of-Concept level
- It provides mentoring and financial support to innovators for converting their ideas into prototypes.
NIDHI Entrepreneurs-In-Residence (EIR) Program
- It provides fellowships to the students opting for entrepreneurship.
The NIDHI Seed Support Program
- It makes early-stage seed support funding available to startups
The NIDHI Accelerator program
- It speeds up the investment readiness of the startups.
- An accelerator is typically a 3-6 months fast track structured program helping ideas get accelerated to the next orbit.