Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare, Government of India sanctioned to establish a RKVY – RAFTAAR Agri-Business Incubator (R-ABI) at Indian Institute of Technology (BHU) Varanasi.
The Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojna (RKVY) is an important scheme of the Government of India, Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare (MoA&FW), aimed at strengthening infrastructure in agriculture and allied areas in order to promote agripreneurship and agribusiness by providing financial support and nurturing the incubation ecosystem, a new component under the revamped scheme RKVY- RAFTAAR has been launched in 2018-19.
Under this scheme, new agribusiness incubators will be established as well as existing agribusiness incubators strengthened as R-ABIs with need-based infrastructure, equipment, and manpower. These R-ABIs will in turn invite applications from agripreneurs in different stages of the business life cycle (ideation/expansion) and provide them an opportunity to generate innovations in the agriculture and the allied sector.
These innovations may include, for example, technological solutions/processes/products/ services/ business platforms, etc. that could enhance productivity or increase efficiency in agriculture and allied activities, enhance remuneration/ farmers’ incomes, rural economy, and wealth. Aligning farmers to market through a value chain approach with a sustainable development agenda will be the other key objective of the incubation/agripreneurship development programme under RKVY-RAFTAAR.
The following components will be executed under RKVY-RAFTAAR:
- Strengthening of existing agribusiness incubators for integrated rejuvenation and development and setting up new ones – R-ABI (RKVY-RAFTAAR Agri-business Incubator).
- Seed Stage Funding of R-ABI Incubatees
- Agripreneurship Orientation
- Idea/Pre-Seed Stage Funding of Agripreneurs