R&D Funding Scheme

Creating an ecosystem for promoting self-reliance by building indigenous state of the art systems for defence application as a part of the Make in India initiative.

The Scheme: The Scheme aims to provide a major boost to the defence manufacturing sector by encouraging the industry to innovate on defence technologies, in order to place India on the self-reliance trajectory. In addition to providing the grants-in-aid for the development of indigenous technology, the Scheme also provides the industry with the various benefits.

DRDO has partnered with Invest India to help in the implementation of the TDF scheme and further facilitate MSME and startup participation.

Eligibility: (Sectors Covered: Defence and Aerospace)

The industry must be a public limited company, a private limited company, a partnership firm, a limited liability partnership, one-person company, sole proprietorship registered as per applicable Indian laws (DSIR Certification is preferred)
The industry must be a MSME or a startup, registered in India
The industry must be owned and controlled by a Resident Indian citizen
Industry to be owned by a Resident Indian Citizen with a shareholding of at least 51%

Please note:

Entity with excess of 49% foreign investment will not be eligible.
Non-profit research institution can only apply in collaboration / association with an Indian Industry. Indian Industry will be the Lead Bidder.

Funding Amount: The project cost of up to INR 50 Cr will be considered for funding, subject to a maximum funding of 90%

Funding Facilitation: (Time line:9 to 12 months)

Funding Facilitation: (Time line:9 to 12 months)

Summarily, the release of funds is facilitated under one of the two options.

Option 1: Issuance of Grant Letter, release of 20% of the Grant Amount and reimbursement of costs in the 5 (five milestones) for disbursement of the remaining 80%.

Option 2: The 80% can be availed as an advance against a bank guarantee/collateral. (For the purpose of Fund release, the selected agency is required to open and operate a new bank account with complete access and information to books of accounts to DTDF/DRDO)

Selection Criteria: (A three-tier evaluation and assessment will be done based on the following parameters)

• Design capability
• Manufacturing capability
• Maintainability and life cycle support
• Commercial viability
• Capacity and profile of the company

Benefits:

• Joint ownership of IPR along with DRDO (All the work/activities on the project, the IP will be owned jointly by DRDO)
• Sales opportunity to primes as subcontractors
• Opportunity of being a part of the defence ecosystem

Proposals supported under TDF Scheme

• Significant up-gradation/improvements/ further developments in the existing products/process/application etc
• Technology readiness level up-gradation from TRL3 onwards to realization of products as per Tri-Services requirements
• Development of futuristic technologies/innovative products which can be useful for the defence applications
• Import substitution of components whose technologies does not exist with the Indian industry.

Scope of services from SCPL

Scinnovation Consultants Pvt. Ltd. (also known as SCPL) will provide the client consulting services offering as required by the client for which the details are as mentioned below:

Deliverables from SCPL

(a) Due diligence to assess the suitability of potential recipients of a grant. SCPL will conduct a background review based on information provided, and from certain publicly available domain for an efficient assessment and we will match the funding programs available with client projects.

(b) Short listing and identification of fundable R&D project

• Scientific quality of the proposal and degree of innovation
• Financial and technical capacity to implement the project
• Market potential and criticality of the technology being developed

(SCPL will assess the application using our standard assessment process to identify a project for funding, from the relevant agencies)

Preparing & submission of documentation

Putting together your technology development & commercialization plans in a Detailed Project Report (DPR) which would include state of the art of the technology, commercialization plans prior art report.