The Union Cabinet has approved the continuation of its flagship initiative, the Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), under the aegis of NITI Aayog, with an enhanced scope of work and an allocated budget of Rs.2,750 crore for the period till March 31, 2028.
Key points
- AIM 2.0 is a step towards Viksit Bharat that aims to expand, strengthen, and deepen India’s already vibrant innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem.
- With India at rank 39 on the Global Innovation Index and home to world’s third-largest start-up ecosystem, the next phase of Atal Innovation Mission (AIM 2.0) is expected to further enhance India’s global competitiveness.
- The continuation of AIM will directly contribute to creating better jobs, innovative products, and high-impact services across sectors.
- While building on the accomplishments of AIM 1.0, such as Atal Tinkering Labs (ATL) and Atal Incubation Centers (AIC), AIM 2.0 marks a qualitative shift in the mission’s approach.
- AIM 2.0 is designed to strengthen India’s innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem in three ways: (a) by increasing input (i.e., ushering more innovators and entrepreneurs), (b) by improving the success rate or ‘throughput’ (i.e., helping more startups succeed) and (c) by improving the quality of ‘output’ (i.e., producing better jobs, products and services).
