{"id":81014,"date":"2026-08-07T18:28:41","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T12:58:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/?p=81014"},"modified":"2026-08-07T18:29:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T12:59:08","slug":"research-development-innovation-fund","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/current-affairs\/07-08-2026\/research-development-innovation-fund","title":{"rendered":"Disbursal of Loans Under The Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) Fund"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Syllabus: GS2\/Governance\/GS3\/Science and Technology<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Context<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Soft Loans were disbursed to the 22 private companies under the <strong>Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) Fund.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>About RDI Fund<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) Fund was <strong>created by the government in 2025.<\/strong>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The Scheme envisages a<strong> corpus of \u20b91 lakh crore over a period of six years.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Aim:<\/strong> To provide collateral-free, low-cost, long-term loans to private sector companies e<strong>ngaged in advanced research and innovation<\/strong> in priority deep-tech sectors like artificial intelligence, quantum technology, space science, defence, robotics, clean energy, semiconductors and digital healthcare.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Managed By: <\/strong>The fund is housed under the <strong>Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF),<\/strong> a recently established statutory body under the Ministry of Science and Technology.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>A Special Purpose Fund (SPF) <\/strong>has been created under ANRF, which is the custodian of money allocated for the RDI Fund.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Disbursal of Funds: <\/strong>It is done<strong> <\/strong>through organisations designated as <strong>Second-Level Fund Managers (SLFMs),<\/strong> which are also responsible for <strong>selecting the Eligible Technology Entities (ETEs) for funding.<\/strong>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Two organisations have been selected to act as SLFMs:<\/strong> the Technology Development Board (TDB), a statutory body under the Department of Science and Technology,\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>and the Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC), a Section 8 not-for-profit company wholly owned by the Department of Biotechnology.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Investment Committee: <\/strong>The evaluation and selection of ETEs has been delegated to<strong> investment committees,<\/strong><em> <\/em>which<strong> each SLFM must constitute separately.\u00a0<\/strong>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>SLFMs take the <strong>final decision after conducting assessments,<\/strong> including a detailed background check, but a company not recommended by the investment committee does not get selected.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Type of Loan: <\/strong>The ETEs are eligible for a loan of a <strong>maximum of 50% <\/strong>of their project cost from the RDI Fund. These are collateral-free loans, offered at about <strong>2-4% interest, for 15 years.<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Eligibility for Applying: <\/strong>Only technologies that have reached<strong> TRL4 stage (products validated under laboratory conditions) are eligible to apply.\u00a0<\/strong>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Proposals are evaluated on scientific, technological, financial and commercial merits, and a decision is taken by majority.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group has-background\" style=\"background-color:#fff2cc\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\n<p><strong>Technology Readiness Level<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>TRL (Technology Readiness Level) is a metric to describe the<strong> maturity of technology being developed.<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>TRL1, the lowest level,<\/strong> is achieved when the basic principles of conversion of a scientific theory into a technology is established.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>TRL9, the highest level<\/strong>, denotes a technology that is proven in operational environments.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Source: IE<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><strong> Context <\/strong><\/p>\n<li class=\"ms-5\"> Soft Loans were disbursed to the 22 private companies under the Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) Fund. <\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><strong>  About RDI Fund <\/strong><\/p>\n<li class=\"ms-5\"> The Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) Fund was created by the government in 2025. <\/li>\n<li class=\"ms-5\"> The Scheme envisages a corpus of \u20b91 lakh crore over a period of six years. <\/li>\n<p><a href=\" https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/current-affairs\/07-08-2026\/research-development-innovation-fund \" class=\"btn btn-primary btn-sm float-end\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-affairs"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81014"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81014\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81017,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81014\/revisions\/81017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}