By- Anuvesh Rath
For those that won, the grant paid for building a prototype, not a production line. The route from problem statement to air base deployment runs through distinct stages, and the public record covers them unevenly. An AoN is the formal approval required before a requirement can move to commercial procurement.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi released the SPRINT challenges in New Delhi on 18 July 2022, with the aim of bringing at least 75 indigenous technologies into service across fields including autonomous and unmanned systems. DISC winners could receive grants of up to ₹1.5 crore, while the SPRINT-PRIME ceiling was ₹10 crore. Of the 1,106 proposals, 118 won funding and roughly eight in nine did not advance. The FF Bot was the first iDEX SPRINT case under DISC-7 to receive Acceptance of Necessity (AoN), in 2023, according to an official statement issued in January 2026. It took between six and seventeen months after the challenges opened in July 2022.
The Comptroller and Auditor General’s Report No. 28 of 2025, tabled in Parliament on 18 December 2025, audited indigenisation contracts for the year ended March 2023. It found delays across stages, including 30 per cent of supply orders for indigenised development being foreclosed. Since then, iDEX has added larger grants for mature projects: the ADITI scheme, launched in 2024, offers up to ₹25 crore per project.
