RDI Fund of ₹1 Lakh Crore Needs Wider Awareness: Minister

Union Minister for Science and Technology Dr Jitendra Singh asked on 1 September 2026 for wider awareness about the Research, Development and Innovation Fund, known as the RDI Fund, which carries a corpus of ₹1 lakh crore. He was speaking at the 30th Foundation Day of the Technology Development Board (TDB). His point was that applicants should understand the purpose of the fund, who is eligible for it and how support is actually availed.

Why outreach is needed

Thousands of applications are coming in, the Minister said, and some of them come from applicants who do not appear to grasp what the fund is for. He warned against reading it as one more source of finance or as an ordinary loan facility. The fund is meant to back technology development and research in a way that feeds the progress of science and becomes part of the growth of the national economy. He said the process of funding is already transparent and carries proper safeguards, though the government remains open to suggestions for more where they are workable, and that the gap to be closed is one of awareness rather than of rules.

Thirty years of the Technology Development Board

The Minister said the board was set up so that technology would not stay inside laboratories but would turn into products and enterprises that ease living, create livelihoods and add to the economy. He said the first thirty years of TDB were spent building the bridge from laboratory to market, and the next thirty should go into building technology champions of global scale from India.

The start-up picture he described

Dr Jitendra Singh asked for myths about entrepreneurship to be cleared. Start-ups are not confined to Bengaluru or Hyderabad, he said, and more than 50 per cent of them come from smaller towns. Nor is entrepreneurship the preserve of the young. He also pointed to the participation of women in the ecosystem, and to the opening of sectors such as space, biotechnology and nuclear energy to private participation. He credited the Prime Minister with placing science, technology and innovation high on the government's agenda and called the last twelve years a decade of scientific renaissance. The address closed on the movement from ideas to innovation and from innovation to industry, on the road to a developed India by 2047.