NEW DELHI, June 12 (Xinhua) -- The Indian government has identified as many as 3,000 additional secondary schools for nurturing innovation and entrepreneurial spirit among secondary school children across the country under the national "Atal Innovation Mission" (AIM), said an official release on Tuesday.

The mission is being run by the National Institution for Transforming India (NITI), or "NITI Aayog," which provides both directional and policy inputs to the government of India.

Formed in January 2015, the NITI Aayog is the premier policy "think tank" of the government of India, which also provides relevant technical advice to the Centre and states.

Under the AIM, a sum of 20 lakh Indian Rupees (around 31,000 US dollars) is granted to the schools to establish "Atal Tinkering Labs" (ATLs) for nurturing innovation and entrepreneurial spirit among secondary school students.

It seeks to enable an innovation ecosystem, which will facilitate transformational change in technological innovation and pedagogy.

"These additional 3,000 schools will greatly expand the reach of the ATL program, increasing the number of children exposed to tinkering and innovation and providing access to the young innovators of India to technologies like 3D Printing, Robotics, IoT and microprocessors", said AIM's managing director Ramanathan Ramanan.

The additional schools will facilitate the creation of over 1 million "Neoteric Child Innovators" by 2020, even as the ATLs will function as innovation hubs for these student innovators to explore solutions to unique local problems which they come across in their everyday lives.

These new additional schools take the number of ATLs to 5, 441 across the country.