India's MeitY launches NIDAR 2.0 drone innovation challenge

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), together with the Drone Federation India (DFI), launched the second edition of the National Innovation Challenge for Drone Application and Research (NIDAR 2.0) for the 2026‑27 period. Held in a hybrid format at Electronics Niketan in New Delhi, the event introduced problem statements and a rulebook aimed at moving students from merely flying drones to building autonomous drone systems using India’s home‑grown VEGA processor, developed under the Digital India RISC‑V (DIR‑V) programme.

NIDAR 2.0 features two competition tracks: a Drone Innovation track that focuses on autonomous swarm drones for disaster response, medical supply delivery and GPS‑denied environments, and a Component Innovation track that requires teams to create indigenous flight controllers and autopilot systems around the VEGA chip. The programme offers a prize pool of over ₹6.5 million (about $76,000), along with startup incubation, cloud‑computing credits, software support and corporate internships for participating teams. The top 100 shortlisted teams will receive VEGA processor kits, and winning teams will get incubation support to commercialise their solutions.

The inaugural edition in 2025 attracted 3,448 students from 22 states, four Union Territories and 109 cities, with 24 teams winning prizes worth ₹4 million. NIDAR 2.0 expands the scope to autonomous systems, indigenous avionics and core drone components, reinforcing the Atmanirbhar Bharat and Viksit Bharat @2047 goals.