NITI Aayog Innovation

Government of India has established ATAL Innovation Mission (AIM) in NITI with a initial sum of Rs. 150 crore.  The Mission will act as a platform to promote a network of world-class Innovation hubs and Grand Challenges for India.  The proposed objectives of AIM are as under:

a) To create an umbrella structure to oversee innovation eco-system of the country;
b) To provide platform and collaboration opportunities for different stakeholders;
c) To study and suggest best and novel practices to be adopted by different stakeholders in the innovations chain;
d) To provide policy inputs to NITI Aayog and various Government Departments and Organizations; 
e) To create awareness and provide knowledge inputs in creating innovation challenges and funding mechanism to government; and,
(f) To develop new programmes and policies for fostering innovation in different sectors of economy.

India has a well regarded and world-class IT industry with revenues of about US$ 150 billion, over US$ 100 billion of exports, employing nearly 40 lakh people directly.  There is now a growing interest in start-ups.  Experimenting in cutting edge technologies, creating value out of ideas and initiatives and converting them into scalable enterprises and businesses is at the core of government's  strategy for engaging the youth and for inclusive and sustainable growth of the country. Concerns such as a more liberal system of raising global capital, incubation facilities in our Centres of Excellence, funding for seed capital and growth, and ease of Doing Business etc. need to be addressed to create lakh of jobs and hundreds of billion dollars in value.

With this objective, Government is establishing a mechanism to be known as SETU (Self-Employment and Talent Utilisation).  SETU will be a Techno-Financial, Incubation and Facilitation Programme to support all aspects of start-up businesses, and other self-employment activities, particularly in technology-driven areas.As stated in paragraph 50 of the Finance Minister’s Budget Speech of 2015-16, initially a sum of Rs. 1000 crores would be set aside for this purpose.

Accordingly, NITI Aayog has constituted an Expert Committee for working out the detailed contours of the Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) and SETU to achieve the stated objectives.