Money to build the thing: how the PRAYAS prototype grant works
Up to INR 40 lakh to turn a design into a working physical prototype, with no equity taken and nothing to repay if the project runs.
Summary
- Two channels, two ceilings. INR 20 lakh through a PRAYAS Centre, INR 40 lakh through an Advance PRAYAS Centre for deep tech, and INR 40 lakh as the overall limit.
- It pays for hardware. Pure software, app-only projects, e-commerce and service ideas are outside it, and so is academic research.
- The eligibility summary you will find published is not the whole test. The document that binds you is the call put out by the centre you apply to.
There is a stage that almost nothing funds well. The idea works on paper, the physics is not in doubt, and what stands between you and a demonstrable product is fifteen lakh of parts, machining, sensors and test time. No investor wants to fund it, because there is nothing yet to show. No bank will lend against it, because there is nothing to secure.
NIDHI-PRAYAS is the Department of Science and Technology's answer to exactly that stage, and it has run since 2016. It is a grant, so you repay nothing and give up no shares. The part founders get wrong is not the money. It is who is actually making the decision.
How much does a PRAYAS grant pay?
There are two channels. A PRAYAS Centre supports technology-based innovations and early-stage prototypes with a grant of up to INR 20 lakh. An Advance PRAYAS Centre supports deep-tech work and prototypes closer to commercialisation, with a grant of up to INR 40 lakh, which is also the overall ceiling across both.
Those are ceilings, not awards. The actual amount is fixed by the centre's committee against what your project needs and what it judges the work to be worth. Treating INR 20 lakh as the number to budget against is the same mistake founders make with every scheme in the register.
A few terms sit around the money. The project runs for fifteen months, extendable to twenty-one months on approval, and beyond that only with departmental approval. A grantee with no other source of income may be allowed a sustenance allowance of up to 20% of the approved grant. That is at the centre committee's discretion rather than by right. An applicant supported by an Advance PRAYAS Centre cannot then re-apply through a standard one.
Does your idea count as a prototype?
The project has to involve developing a physical product. That single requirement decides most eligibility questions before anyone reads your application.
Explicitly outside the scheme: pure software development, e-commerce, service solutions and app-only projects. Also outside it: pure academic or doctoral research, professors and academicians applying in that capacity, and an institution developing its own intellectual property into a prototype.
Where software sits inside a hardware product, which is most interesting hardware now, the reading is the centre's rather than yours. Ask before you write. Intellectual property generated through the project vests with the innovator. Confirm that in writing at sanction. It is the reason a grant like this is cheaper capital than almost anything else at this stage.
Who actually decides, the department or the centre?
The scheme is national. The door is local, and it is a technology business incubator hosting a PRAYAS Centre or an Advance PRAYAS Centre.
- You apply on a common template to a specific centre, through the nidhi-prayas portal. You are choosing an institution, not just a scheme.
- The centre's selection committee shortlists applicants against the call.
- Shortlisted innovators pitch to that committee.
- The centre's monitoring committee approves the final list of supported innovators, and the grant is sanctioned to you.
The rules are the department's. The decision, the timetable and half the conditions are your centre's.
This is why asking when PRAYAS opens has no general answer. The scheme does not run one national window. Each centre calls for applications on its own cycle. The real question is which centres near you or in your sector are calling now, and which of them has built things like yours before. The register page for PRAYAS carries the scheme-level record, and the seven stages of a government application describe what follows selection.
Why the published eligibility list will not settle it
Be plain about this, because it is the most expensive misunderstanding in this scheme. The eligibility criteria you will find published, here and elsewhere, are a summary. They are not the complete test, and an application that clears every published line can still be ineligible.
The age question shows it. The scheme document carries a seven-year ceiling for startups, which follows the standard recognised-startup definition. An older centre-level variant of the criteria stated under two years. Both are real documents, and only one of them governs the call you are answering.
So the rule is simple. Read the call document of the centre you intend to apply to, and check your position against that document rather than against any summary, including this article. If the centre's call and a national summary disagree, the call is the one that decides your application.
Can you take PRAYAS twice?
Not for the same idea. You have to declare that you have not already received PRAYAS support for the idea you are applying with. The declaration is part of the application, not a formality nobody checks.
There is also a cross-exclusion with NIDHI-EIR, the entrepreneur-in-residence fellowship under the same national programme. An applicant declares they have not had that support either. If you have been through one, check the current wording before assuming the other is available to you.
This pattern repeats across central schemes, and it catches people who have taken small support early and stopped counting it. We have written about where government applications actually stop, and an exclusion nobody read is one of the seven.
What else does a PRAYAS centre give you?
The cash is not the whole package, and for a hardware team the rest of it can be worth as much.
- Access to fabrication and prototyping facilities and workspace at the host centre, including the department's Maker Bhavan and PRAYAS Shala facilities.
- Technical and business mentorship from the centre.
- Intellectual property and legal assistance.
- Industry and investor connections through the centre's network.
Price that honestly when you compare options. Say you are budgeting INR 6 lakh for machine time and test equipment you would otherwise hire. A centre that already owns those machines changes the arithmetic of the whole project. That is our judgement rather than a scheme term, and it is the reason we tell hardware founders to choose the centre on its workshop, not only on its brand.
What to get ready before a centre calls for applications
Because calls are local and short, the preparation is what decides whether you can answer one. Write the physical-product story as a build plan rather than a vision. What exists today, what the grant buys, what you will demonstrate at the end, and the bill of materials behind it.
Then map the centres. Find the PRAYAS and Advance PRAYAS Centres that are relevant to your technology, read their last call documents, and speak to them before the next one opens. A five-minute conversation about whether they consider your project a physical product saves a fortnight of drafting.
Not sure this is the right scheme for your stage at all? The chooser runs four questions across the whole register. The register itself carries the eligibility and process for each scheme, with a source behind every line.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need a registered company to apply for PRAYAS?
No. An Indian individual innovator aged eighteen or over can apply, and so can an early-stage startup. This is one of the few central schemes where not having incorporated yet is not a bar. The centre's own call may say more about the form it expects.
Does PRAYAS take equity or ask for repayment?
Neither. It is a grant, it is not repayable, and it takes no shares. Intellectual property generated through the project vests with the innovator.
Can a software product get PRAYAS support?
Pure software development, app-only projects, e-commerce and service solutions are excluded. The project has to involve building a physical product. Where your software runs on hardware you are also building, that is a question to put to the centre rather than one to answer yourself.
How long does a PRAYAS project run?
Fifteen months, extendable to twenty-one months where the centre approves, and beyond that only with departmental approval. Plan the build to the first number, because extensions are granted rather than assumed.
General guidance, current as at September 2026. Scheme terms, ceilings and centre-level criteria change, and the centre's own call document governs your application. If you want help deciding whether this is the right scheme for your build, our grants and schemes work starts with that question.
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Lead - Company Secretarial, Compliance & Fundraise Advisory
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