Cabinet approves continuation of Atal Innovation Mission

The Union Cabinet has approved the continuation of its flagship initiative, the Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), and allocated a budget of Rs 2,750 crore to it for the period up to March 31, 2028. According to an official statement, AIM 2.0 is a step towards "Viksit Bharat" that aims to expand, strengthen and deepen India's already vibrant innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem.

"The approval underscores the government's commitment to fostering a robust innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem in India. 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 (ATLs) and Atal Incubation Centres (AICs), AIM 2.0 marks a qualitative shift in the mission's approach," the statement said.


Whereas AIM 1.0 involved implementing programmes that built new innovation infrastructure to strengthen India's then nascent ecosystem, AIM 2.0 involves piloting new initiatives designed to fill gaps in the ecosystem and scaling successes through central and state governments, industry, academia and community.

"AIM 2.0 is designed to strengthen India's innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem in three ways -- by increasing input (ushering more innovators and entrepreneurs), by improving the success rate or 'throughput' (helping more startups succeed) and by improving the quality of 'output' (producing better jobs, products and services)," the statement added.