Tool · 15 min read

RKVY-RAFTAAR Innovation and Agri-Entrepreneurship Programme

Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare · Government of India Free Beginner India

This is the official portal for grant-in-aid up to INR 25 lakh (seed) and INR 5 lakh (idea stage) routed through a network of 24 agribusiness incubators (R-ABIs) sitting inside agricultural universities across the country, not in the metros. You incubate at your nearest R-ABI, which means proximity to the local farming problem is literally the eligibility path, and open cohorts (for example CSK Himachal Pradesh and IIT Kharagpur) list live deadlines you can apply to right now.

  • Grant-in-aid up to INR 25 lakh seed and INR 5 lakh idea stage, released in milestone-linked installments, so it is non-dilutive money for agri and rural ventures
  • 24 R-ABIs spread across state agricultural universities mean the incubator is often near your base, not a metro you have to move to
  • Applications go through individual R-ABI cohorts with rolling deadlines, giving founders outside big cities a direct, thin-competition entry point
Open on agristartup.gov.in ↗

The question it answers

  1. I'm building outside the metros. Which grants and schemes actually favor founders in smaller cities and rural India?

Read with it

  1. This is the state-by-state comparison that proves the point: it names concrete numbers you can act on, Kerala's INR 2500 Cr... Inc42 Article · 14 min read Startup Policies: Karnataka, Telangana, Rajasthan And Kerala Lead The Charge Inc42 Staff
  2. This is NABARD's own page for its INR 750 Cr blended-capital fund built specifically for agriculture and rural enterprise, with... NABARD Tool · 10 min read AgriSURE: Agri Fund for Start-Ups and Rural Enterprises NABARD / NABVENTURES Ltd.
eChai Partner Brands The partnership →