Mohali-based woman entrepreneur Mrinal Tayal has been declared as one of the four winners of project of the Indian Navy. Educated at Harvard and Tuffet University, Boston, Tayal has been selected among applicants bidding for new technology projects under the ‘Make in India’ programme.

Called the Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX), it is run by the Ministry of Defence and looks to replace imported items in the inventory with Indian ones. Tayal’s company Almerio Defence and Aerospace will make a project of high-explosives. Meanwhile, Micronel Global Engineers has been selected for the project of unmanned seaplane. A project on optic fibre-based fire and temperature detection system for seagoing platforms has been given to Technica Fibre Tech while DV2JS Innovation has got another project.

In recent years, the government has initiated various schemes to encourage Indian commercial ecosystem.