BIRAC–RDI Fund: ₹2,000 crore national call announced to scale high-impact biotechnology innovations

Exam-focused facts from the 17 February 2026 current affairs briefing.

Key facts

Union Minister Jitendra Singh announced the first national call for the BIRAC–RDI Fund, a ₹2,000 crore financing window under the ₹1 lakh crore Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) initiative.
The Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC) is appointed as the second-level fund manager and will deploy the amount over up to five years.
The fund will support technologies from TRL-4 to TRL-9 through equity, convertible instruments and long-term debt.
Phase-1 submissions for eligible startups, SMEs and industry partners close on 31 March 2026.
India’s biotechnology startups expanded from around 50 in 2014 to more than 11,000 today.
The bioeconomy grew from about $8 billion in 2014 to $165.7 billion in 2024, targeting $300 billion by 2030 and $1 trillion by 2047.
Biotechnology experiments using domestically developed kits are being conducted in space for plant and life sciences research.