The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and the Drone Federation of India have launched NIDAR 2.0, a student innovation challenge aimed at building indigenous drone capability.
The official release said MeitY Secretary S. Krishnan launched the problem statements, poster and rulebook for the second edition. The programme asks students to move beyond flying drones and work on the systems that make drones autonomous, reliable and locally controlled.
Technology tracks
The challenge includes autonomous swarm drones for disaster survivor detection and medical supply delivery, GPS-less indoor industrial inspection, and indigenous flight controller or autopilot development using the VEGA processor.
The VEGA link is important because it connects the competition with the Digital India RISC-V effort. If students build around Indian processor platforms, the learning moves from assembly-level drone use to deeper work on embedded systems, sensing, navigation and control.
The first edition of NIDAR, held in March 2025, drew 3,448 students from 109 cities across 22 states and four Union territories. The release said 93 finalists competed and 24 teams won prizes worth Rs 40 lakh.
Innovation pipeline
For the second edition, the top 100 teams are expected to receive two VEGA kits each, and the prize pool is listed at more than Rs 65 lakh. The wider SwaYaan programme is valued at Rs 89.87 crore over five years and has already trained more than 51,000 people through 30 institutions, according to the release.
The public value is clear: disaster response, factory inspection, defence-adjacent autonomy and industrial robotics all need domestic engineering depth. NIDAR 2.0 will be useful if winning teams are supported beyond the prize stage with testing spaces, mentors, procurement pathways and safety review.
The GPS-less inspection track is especially practical for factories, warehouses and mines where satellite signals are unreliable. Success there requires mapping, obstacle avoidance, sensor fusion and robust control software, not only a camera mounted on a drone.
The swarm-drone track is also demanding because it asks teams to solve coordination, communication and fault-tolerance problems. These are the same capabilities needed when drones are deployed in disaster zones with damaged infrastructure.
Source: release dated 13 July 2026, Release ID 2284282.
