Eligibility Criteria

1. Individual innovator: He / She is required to be Indian Citizen at least 18 years of age on 1st of  August 2016. An Indian citizen is defined as one who is in possession of a government approved proof of Nationality such as a valid passport, voter’s id etc.
2. Existing incubatee of a PRAYAS centre:-

• The company is less than 2 years and wants to develop the prototype for a new product, for which they may have not received similar kind of support.  
• Company should have no significant revenue at the time of application.

3. Team of individual innovator:
   If the team wants to pursue the project, then there has to be an agreement among the team about the lead applicant and the lead applicant have to apply for NIDHI-PRAYAS. The financial support (after the selection process) will be given to the lead applicant on behalf of the team.
4. The priority areas for supporting innovations under NIDHI PRAYAS program are manufacturing, agriculture, healthcare, clean-tech, energy, water and Internet of Things (IOT) and other technology areas.
5. Preference may be given to those innovators 

• Who have bootstrapped or have got co-investment commitment.
• Who have clear road map for commercialization or start up creation.
• Women innovators
• Young innovators

6. If the innovator is pursuing to build a prototype from their institute/organization IP, then in that case innovator will take NOC from the appropriate authority of their institute/organization for use/IP transfer / ownership in favour of the innovator/startup.
7. If the applicant is studying /working in an institute/organization, they should get a no objection certificate from that respective institute/organization for applying to NIDHI PRAYAS.
8. The NIDHI-PRAYAS grantee should be registered for the pre-incubation or incubation program at the PSG - STEP for the entire duration of the program, after going through the selection process.
9. NIDHI-PRAYAS grantee should be fully committed to work towards the prototype development for which the support is being sought and should not treat this as a stop gap arrangement to support any other pursuits.
10. The innovator can avail the NIDHI-PRAYAS support only once and they should not have sought the similar support previously, from other Government of India organization/Institution for the same innovative concept as proposed in the application form.

Not eligible for NIDHI - PRAYAS:

1. Student applicants pursuing long term research projects like doctoral research projects or similar projects will not be supported
2. Professors or Academicians engaged in teaching with any academic or R&D institute.
3. The project should involve physical product development. The projects relating to software development and those involving pure academic research are not eligible.