Open Call for Grant Opportunity for Scaling Drone Based Agricultural Services in Andhra Pradesh India 2026, The Innovation and Concept Viability Grant is a joint initiative by Athena Infonomics and Ratan Tata Innovation Hub, delivered in technical collaboration with the Government of Andhra Pradesh and supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

With nearly 8.5 million farming households in Andhra Pradesh working on highly fragmented landholdings, the need for timely and efficient agricultural operations has never been greater. However, increasing labour costs, seasonal workforce shortages, and narrow cropping windows are placing growing pressure on farm productivity.

Agricultural drones present a powerful solution—offering faster, more precise, and scalable application of inputs. They help reduce reliance on manual labour, lower exposure to harmful chemicals, and improve efficiency across small and scattered plots.

This grant calls on experienced drone service providers to pilot end-to-end delivery models that are commercially viable, inclusive of smallholder farmers, and transparent in execution. The goal is to generate actionable insights that can inform state-level policies and unlock larger-scale private investment in the sector.

Applicants are encouraged to carefully review the full details and submit their applications before the specified deadline to seize this grant opportunity.

Last Date of Submission: 24^th April 2026

Objectives for Open Call for Grant Opportunity for Scaling Drone Based Agricultural Services in Andhra Pradesh India 2026

• Discover viable operating models for drone-based agricultural services: The grant funds experienced drone service operators to test end-to-end service delivery models for smallholder farmers in Andhra Pradesh — identifying the optimal service bundle, pricing structures, and demand aggregation strategies that make drone-based services commercially sustainable and replicable at scale.
• Provide catalytic risk capital to unlock private investment: Structured as Viability Gap Finance, the grant underwrites specific commercial risks that the private sector cannot absorb alone during a market validation phase — covering first-mover demand generation, customer acquisition, and data collection costs to demonstrate viability and attract private investment.
• Strengthen demand-side infrastructure for drone services: The grant will test whether Andhra Pradesh’s existing institutional assets — Rythu Seva Kendras, Farmer Producer Organisations, and the Agristack platform — can be systematically activated as demand aggregation channels to bridge fragmented smallholder demand and the cluster-level scale required for viable drone deployment.
• Generate actionable evidence for state policy and regulation: Funded operators will track and report standardised outcomes across commercial viability, grant efficiency, scalability, and farmer impact. The evidence generated will serve as a public good, informing state procurement design, public financing frameworks, and regulatory policy for drone-based agricultural services.
• Build an ecosystem for scalable, inclusive drone services: Through this challenge and the immediate pilot, the grant aims to identify replicable business models, build operator capacity, and create a template for future public-private partnerships — contributing to a shared knowledge base that benefits operators, investors, and government agencies planning to scale drone services across the state.

3. Who can participate?

• Registered legal entity in India.
• Valid DGCA approvals for commercial drone operations.
• Minimum 12 months of experience in providing drone-based services in the agriculture sector. (Firms that only manufacture drones and don’t have a strong track record of organizing and delivering drone services will not be considered)
• Minimum fleet capacity of 10 agricultural drones (owned or under valid binding lease/partnership).
• Minimum 10 certified remote pilots on roster or under contract.
• Demonstrated spare parts inventory and repair capability (turnaround ≤48 hours).
• Audited financial statements for the last 2 years.

Consortium bids are encouraged where they bring complementary capabilities. One entity must be designated as lead contracting party with accountability for all deliverables.

4. 🎯 Problem Statements
5. Problem Statement I: Discovering a Viable Operating System for Drone-Based Agricultural Services

What combination of technology, business model, and institutional arrangements makes drone-based agricultural services inclusive, scalable, and accountable for smallholder farmers in Andhra Pradesh?

Problem Focus for Open Call for Grant Opportunity for Scaling Drone Based Agricultural Services in Andhra Pradesh India 2026

• With typical landholdings of 1–3 acres, fragmented smallholder farms in Andhra Pradesh cannot individually absorb drone mobilisation costs, making predictable, cluster-level demand aggregation a binding constraint for commercial viability.
• Operators lack clarity on the optimal service bundle — whether spraying alone is sufficient or must be combined with crop monitoring and advisory — and the pricing structures that are acceptable to smallholders while ensuring operator sustainability.
• Digital platform maturity varies widely across operators, with readiness for integration into state systems such as Agristack and APAIMS being a critical but unresolved differentiator for scalability.

Expected Outcomes

• A validated, bottom-up unit economics model demonstrating gross margin per acre, fully loaded cost per acre by service tier, and commercial breakeven month — establishing whether a sustainable margin is achievable at prevailing smallholder price points.
• Evidence on the minimum viable cluster size (contiguous acres per deployment) and the customer acquisition cost per paying farmer across aggregation channels — RSKs, FPOs, input dealers, or digital platforms — that make each deployment financially sustainable.
• A replicable operating model with documented SOPs and digital infrastructure, validated by a Season 2 repeat usage rate that demonstrates farmer willingness to pay at market rates without subsidy.

1. Problem Statement II: Defining the Role of the State Government in Enabling Scale

What role, if any, must the state government play to make drone-based agricultural services viable and scalable for smallholder farmers in Andhra Pradesh?

Problem Focus

• Asset subsidies without organised demand have historically created market failures — idle equipment, loan defaults, and operator exit — underscoring the need to define a more strategic and targeted role for government intervention.
• Andhra Pradesh has substantial institutional assets — RSKs, FPOs, the Agristack platform, APAIMS, the RTGS drone uberisation platform, and the APCNF programme — that have not yet been systematically activated to support drone service delivery.
• The boundaries between what the market can sustain commercially and what requires public support remain unclear, making it difficult to design effective, non-distortionary government financing and procurement frameworks.

Expected Outcomes

• Evidence on the grant leverage ratio — total economic activity mobilised per rupee of public investment — and the number of unique paying farmers reached per ₹ lakh of grant, establishing the efficiency benchmark for any future public financing instrument.
• A clear articulation of the demand aggregation cost per farmer organised through state-supported channels such as RSKs and FPOs, and whether these channels deliver meaningfully lower costs compared to purely commercial alternatives.
• Policy-ready recommendations on government’s role in financing, procurement, and regulation, grounded in farmer-reported input cost savings per acre and labour substitution value — providing robust evidence base for future state investment decisions.

5. 🎯 What You Get

A Viability Gap Finance (VGF) grant of up to ₹ 90,00,000 (Rupees Ninety Lakhs) is available for up to two selected operators collectively. The VGF is designed to serve as catalytic risk capital that underwrites specific, well-defined commercial risks that the private sector cannot absorb alone during a market validation phase.

Eligible uses of grant funds include:

• First-mover demand generation costs: farmer demonstrations, awareness campaigns, cluster activation, and channel partner onboarding in geographies or service categories to generate and aggregate demand.
• Customer acquisition costs during the initial period, before organic referral and repeat usage are established.
• The incremental cost of rigorous data collection and business intelligence that benefits the broader ecosystem but would not be captured by a single commercial operator.
• Costs associated with coordinating with or integrating into existing government-supported drone service delivery channels (e.g., Namo Drone Didi SHGs, RSKs, CHCs, FPOs etc.), where such coordination demonstrably reduces duplication and improves demand aggregation efficiency.
• Seasonal cash-flow bridging costs are inherent to agricultural service businesses where demand is concentrated but costs are year-round.
• The cost premium of full regulatory compliance, mission traceability, and data-sharing beyond what a purely commercial operation would invest in.
• Limited, documented, time-bound promotional pricing as part of a defined customer acquisition strategy is permitted, provided subsidised and market-rate transactions are separately coded in all data reporting.

The VGF may not be used for:

• Capital expenditure on drone hardware. The operator must own or finance its own fleet. This is not an asset subsidy.
• Salaries or overhead of staff not directly deployed on this initiative.
• Any other unrelated expenditure.

How to apply?

Step 1: Register Online

Complete the application form by providing your personal, academic/startup, and team details. Ensure all information is accurate and up to date.

Step 2: Submit Your Proposal / solution

Describe your proposed solution, including the problem understanding, key features, technology approach, and expected outcomes. You may also upload a pitch deck or prototype link, if available.

7. Selection Process.

Stage 1: Screening & Shortlisting

Compliance Screening: Proposals checked for completeness, page limits, and minimum eligibility criteria (Section 7 of the Innovation and Concept Viability Grant Document available on the RTIH portal) and evaluation.

Stage 2: Technical Presentation

The top three proposals will be invited for a 60-minute technical presentation and Q&A.

Stage 3: Selection and Milestone Negotiation

Preferred proposer(s) identified; VGF milestones aligned to proposal projections; contract negotiated

<<<Start Application Here>>>

Note: For more comprehensive details click the link below

Get full access to the grant information, visit the Official Website Link

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