Knowledge
Niti Aayog has its sights trained on encouraging innovation and start-ups at school level
Following up on the budget speech announcement, the Niti Aayog has laid out the blueprint of its plan to roll out Atal Innovation Mission and Atal Incubation centers. This move is expected to encourage start-ups and innovation.
The Modi Government is beginning to walk its talk. Following the finance minister’s announcement to establish AIM (Atal Innovation Mission) in NITI Aayog in his budget 2015-16 speech, the NITI Aayog has initiated the process for setting up 500 tinkering labs in schools and 100 incubation centres across the country.
This is hailed as a move that has the potential to boost innovation in the country. The highlight of this initiative is its outlook to nurture innovation right from an early age. Here is a look at how this initiative will be rolled out.
To foster creativity and scientific temper in students, the government will provide a one-time establishment grant of Rs 10 lakh under AIM for establishing Atal Tinkering Labs catering to grade VI-XII in select schools across India.
Additionally, an amount of Rs 10 lakh would be allocated to each lab over a period of 5 years for operational expenses, adding up to a government spend of Rs 20 lakhs per laboratory.
This mission includes in its ambit, providing financial support to academic and non-academic institutions (companies, technology parks, group of individuals) to establish new Atal Incubation Centres across the country. Areas demarcated for establishing these centers are manufacturing, transport, energy, health, education, agriculture, water and sanitation. A total of 100 such centres are envisioned for 2016-17.
A total grant of Rs 10 crore will be allocated over 5 years towards capital investment as well as operation and maintenance expenses of these incubation centres.
Not only this, once these centers are up and running, the mission will play a key role in helping the centers scale up with a monetary assistance of Rs. 10 crore which can be utilised for augmenting their capacity. Such centers will be shortlisted on the basis of pre-defined key performance indicators.
This twin pronged approach will radically transform the start-up ecosystem in the country by creating a network of incubation centres of world-class standards, the Aayog said.
Rather than only approaching schools and institutions, the government thinktank is open to receive applications from interested schools, institutions and individuals seeking financial support for setting up research laboratories under the mission.