Parl panel flags underspending in Atal Innovation Mission by NITI Aayog

NITI Aayog's flagship Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) exhausted only a fourth of its budgeted allocation in 2025-26, with the Revised Estimate (RE) slashed to Rs 110 crore from a Budget Estimate (BE) of Rs 400 crore, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance flagged in its latest report on the Ministry of Planning.

 

The Ministry cited the need for "fresh due diligence" of beneficiaries as the reason for the under-utilisation — an explanation the Committee was unconvinced by. "A massive mid-year cost-cutting suggests that the initial budget targets were disconnected from the mission's operational readiness," the panel said.

 

AIM is the government's flagship programme to build a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship in schools, universities, research institutions and the MSME sector, running programmes such as Atal Tinkering Labs and Atal Incubation Centres.

 

 

Capital expenditure under the scheme was almost non-existent, at just Rs 0.06 crore till January 31, 2026, a level the Committee said pointed to "NIL tangible gains or infrastructure creation."

 

The panel pointed to repeated underspending under the scheme, with NITI Aayog spending only Rs 27.08 crore (17 per cent) in 2024-25 against a BE of Rs 155 crore.

 

"The Ministry's attribution of this to a late Cabinet approval and the shift to the fund flow system reveals a lack of transition planning," the report noted. "These procedural lapses effectively froze progress for a considerable part of the year."

 

The slowdown in fund utilisation showed up on the ground. Atal Tinkering Labs (ATLs) and Atal Incubation Centres (AICs) saw grant disbursements drop by half against targets, while newer AIM 2.0 initiatives — the Language Inclusive Program of Innovation (LIPI), Frontier Region ATLs, and Industrial Accelerators — recorded zero progress against their 2025-26 targets.

 

"The gap in disbursements of 'subsequent tranche' is indicative of liquidity crunches, potentially stifling the innovation ecosystem AIM seeks to establish and nurture," the Committee observed, recommending that NITI Aayog secure "in-principle" approvals well ahead of a fiscal year in the preceding cycle, if feasible, so Cabinet clearances no longer stall fund flow.

 

The under-utilisation was not confined to AIM. The Committee's review of NITI Aayog's Quarterly Expenditure Plan (QEP) showed actual spending at just 35 per cent of BE in FY24 and 33 per cent in FY25. FY26 showed improvement, with cumulative utilisation at 56.46 per cent as of mid-February — but the pattern within the year raised a separate red flag.

 

Against a planned Q4 outlay of Rs 145.03 crore, NITI Aayog had already recorded Rs 139.17 crore in expenditure by February 13 — 96 per cent of the quarter's plan executed well before the quarter's end. The Committee read this as a familiar year-end scramble to exhaust funds, cautioning that it risks breaching the Finance Ministry's cap of no more than 15 per cent of BE being spent in the final month of the year. It recommended that at least 50 per cent of the fiscal target be spent in the first half of the year, with stricter adherence to QEP norms going forward.