The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), in partnership with the Drone Federation India (DFI), has launched NIDAR 2.0 (National Innovation Challenge for Drone Application and Research) for 2026–27 under the SwaYaan initiative. Announced on 13 July 2026, the programme aims to encourage students to develop advanced autonomous drones and indigenous drone technologies powered by India’s VEGA processor, supporting the vision of Atmanirbhar Bharat and Viksit Bharat @2047.
NIDAR 2.0 features a prize pool of over ₹65 lakh and offers additional incentives such as startup incubation, internships, cloud computing credits, software support, and prototype commercialisation opportunities. The competition has two tracks: Drone Innovation, which focuses on autonomous drones for disaster response, medical supply delivery, and GPS-denied navigation; and Component Innovation, which encourages the development of indigenous flight controllers, autopilot systems, and drone electronics using the VEGA processor developed by C-DAC on the open-source RISC-V architecture.
The challenge is part of the SwaYaan programme, approved by MeitY in 2022 with an outlay of ₹89.87 crore over five years. It seeks to build skilled manpower, strengthen academia-industry collaboration, promote semiconductor innovation, and accelerate India’s self-reliance in drone and unmanned aircraft technologies.
