NIDHI-EIR (Entrepreneur-in-Residence)

DST fellowship program providing monthly stipends to graduating students and first-time founders pursuing entrepreneurship, enabling them to focus full-time on building their ventures. Because EIR support is explicitly a personal fellowship rather than company funding, applicants cannot simultaneously be a promoter or significant shareholder of another company, and disbursement is routed through whichever DST-recognized incubator hosts the entrepreneur for the full support term. Monthly stipend amounts scale from a floor of ₹10,000 up to the ₹30,000 ceiling depending on the host incubator's assessment, capping at roughly ₹3.6 lakh in total support across the fellowship period.