RDI Fund Names First 19 Second Level Fund Managers

The correct answer is 19. The Empowered Group of Secretaries approved the cohort at its meeting on 8 October 2026, and the nineteen are made up of two kinds of institution: 14 Alternative Investment Funds and 5 Focused Research Organisations. That break-up explains why options A and C are the traps, since each names one half of the total and a candidate who remembers the components but not the sum will pick one of them. Option D is simply not the figure announced. The total commitment of the fund to this first cohort is 7,131 crore rupees out of the one lakh crore rupee scheme. These managers will pass the money to Eligible Technology Enterprises working at Technology Readiness Level 4 and above, and are expected to mobilise an equal amount of private capital alongside it.

The correct answer is the Anusandhan National Research Foundation, which works under the Department of Science and Technology in the Ministry of Science and Technology. The fund is run by an Independent Business Unit housed within that foundation, and the foundation's Executive Council is one of the stages a fund manager's proposal must clear before it reaches the Empowered Group of Secretaries. Option A is wrong because NITI Aayog advises on policy and does not manage investment funds of this kind. Option B names the country's largest chain of research laboratories, which conducts research rather than channelling patient capital to enterprises. Option D is a development finance institution for small industry, a plausible-sounding home for a fund but not the one chosen here. The first call for applications from prospective managers went out in January 2026.

The correct answer is Technology Readiness Level 4 and above. Eligible Technology Enterprises working at that level or higher can receive capital channelled by the Second Level Fund Managers, which means the fund steps in once an idea has moved past paper and early concept work and has been validated in a laboratory setting. Option A would include the earliest conceptual stages, which the fund is not designed for; option C would restrict support to technologies close to full deployment, by which point commercial money is usually easier to find; and option D is wrong because the whole purpose of the fund is to support work before a product reaches the market. The design addresses a financing gap that has long limited private investment in emerging and strategic technologies, and managers must raise private capital matching the fund's own contribution.