Atal New India Challenge

• The Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) under the NITI Aayog has launched the Atal New India Challenge.

About the Atal New India Challenge:

• It shall be run in collaboration with various ministries- Ministry of Road Transport & Highways, Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Ministry of Water Resources, River Development & Ganga Rejuvenation and Ministry of Drinking Water & Sanitation.
• AIM will invite prospective innovators/MSMEs/start-ups to design market-ready products, using cutting edge technologies or prototypes across 17 identified focus areas such as Climate Smart Agriculture, Smart Mobility, Predictive Maintenance of Rolling Stock, Waste Management etc.
• Applicants showing capability, intent and potential to productize technologies will be awarded grants up to Rs. One crore. This grant will be further supplemented by mentoring, handholding, incubating and other support as needed at various stages of commercialisation, while generating wider deployment for the product.

About Atal innovation mission:

• Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) was launched by the NITI Ayog as an innovation promotion platform involving academics, entrepreneurs, and researchers utilizing national and international experience to promote the culture of innovation, R and D in India particularly in technology oriented areas.
• The AIM along with Self-Employment and Talent Utilization (SETU) are Government of India’s the leading ventures to promote a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship. The Atal Innovation Mission has two core functions:
• Entrepreneurship promotion through Self-Employment and Talent Utilization, wherein innovators would be supported and mentored to become successful entrepreneurs.
• Innovation promotion: to provide a platform where innovative ideas are generated
• To realize these two core objectives, AIM has different sub-components. Atal Incubation Centers, Atal Tinkering Laboratories, Atal Grand Challenge Awards and Scale up Support to Established Incubation Centers.
• Atal Incubation Centers are aimed at the creation and promotion of incubation centers across the country. AICs will promote startups in various sectors like manufacturing, transport, energy, health, education, agriculture, water, sanitation, etc., and would provide them with necessary infrastructural facilities and other value-added services. AIM gives a grant-in-aid of Rs 10 crore to each AIC for a maximum of five years to cover capital and operational expenditure cost.
• An incubation centre should be a legal entity to be registered in India as public, private or public-private partnership and must be in operation for a minimum of three years.
• The Scale-up Support to Established Incubation Centers’ aims to augment capacity of the established incubation centers in the country. 

By: Vishal