Big Boost To ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan’, Budgetary Support For Defence Innovation Approved

In a bid to create an ecosystem to foster innovation and technology development in defence and aerospace by engaging the industries, including MSMEs, start-ups, individual innovators, research and development institutes and academia, the Department of Defence Production (DDP) has created the iDEX framework and established the DIO.

Rajnath Singh

New Delhi: In what will provide a big boost to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan’, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has approved Rs 498.8 crore budgetary support to Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX) - Defence Innovation Organisation (DIO) - for the next five years.

The iDEX–DIO has the main objective of self-reliance and indigenisation of the country’s defence and aerospace sector.

In a bid to create an ecosystem to foster innovation and technology development in defence and aerospace by engaging the industries, including MSMEs, start-ups, individual innovators, research and development institutes and academia, the Department of Defence Production (DDP) has created the iDEX framework and established the DIO.

All engaged will be provided with grants/funding and other support to carry out research and development, which has good potential for future adoption for Indian defence and aerospace needs.

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Aimed at providing financial support to nearly 300 start-ups/MSMEs/individual innovators and 20 partner incubators under the DIO framework, the scheme will support increased awareness in the Indian innovation ecosystem about the defence needs and, conversely, in the Indian defence establishment about the Indian innovation eco-system’s potential to deliver innovative solutions to meet their needs.

With its team, the DIO will enable the creation of channels for innovators to engage and interact with the Indian defence production industry aimed at establishing a culture, where enlisting the innovators’ efforts by the Indian military is commonplace and frequent.

“The scheme aims to facilitate rapid development of new, indigenised and innovative technologies for the Indian defence and aerospace sector to meet their needs in shorter timelines; create a culture of engagement with innovative start-ups to encourage co-creation for defence and aerospace; empower a culture of technology co-creation and co-innovation within the defence and aerospace sector and boost innovation among the start-ups and encourage them to be a part of the ecosystem,” the Ministry of Defence said in its release.

The funds will be released to the DIO for setting up and managing the iDEX network in the form of Partner Incubators (PIs); communicating with innovators/start-ups/technology centres of MSMEs through the PIs, including the PIs of Department of Science and Technology regarding defence and aerospace needs.

The funds to be released by the Department of Defence Production will also be used for organising various challenges/hackathons to shortlist potential technologies and entities and evaluating technologies and products developed by innovators/start-ups in terms of their utility and impact on the defence and aerospace setup.

The Ministry of Defence further said the activities include enabling and funding pilots using innovation funds dedicated to the purpose, interfacing with the top brass of the armed forces with regard to key innovative technologies and encouraging their adoption into the defence establishment with suitable assistance.

The other activities include facilitating scale-up, indigenisation and integration in manufacturing facilities for successfully piloted technologies and organising outreach activities across the nation.