Don't Miss: Here's Modi Government's Startup India Action Plan Know more about Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Startup India initiative
By Tripti Narain •
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An Action Plan for Startup India to build a strong eco-system to nurture innovation and Startups in the country was launched on 16th January 2016. Minister of State (Independent Charge) in the Ministry of Commerce & Industry Nirmala Sitharaman informed Lok Sabha about the salient features of the scheme. Here's a low down:
Simplification and Hand-holding
- Simple Compliance Regime for startups based on Self-certification
- Launch of Mobile app and Portal for compliance and information exchange
- Startup India Hub to handhold startups during various phases of their development
- Legal support and fast-tracking patent examination at reduced costs
- Relaxed norms of public procurement for startups
- Faster exit for startups
Funding support and Incentives
- Providing funding support through a Fund of Funds with a corpus of Rupees 10,000 crore
- Credit guarantee fund for startups
- Tax exemption on capital gains invested in Fund of Funds
- Tax exemption to startups for 3 years
Industry-Academia Partnership and Incubation
- Organizing Startup Fests to showcase innovations and providing collaboration platforms
- Launch of Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) with Self –Employment and Talent Utilization (SETU) Program of NITI Aayog
- Harnessing private sector expertise for setting up incubators
- Setting up of 7 new research parks modeled on the Research Park at IIT Madras
- Launching of innovation focused programs for students.
- Annual Incubator Grand Challenge to promote good practices among incubators.
Credit Guarantee Fund
The initiative provides for creating a credit guarantee fund for startups through National Guarantee Trust Company (NCGTC)/SIDBI with a Corpus of Rs.500 crore per year for the next four years.
With this Action Plan the Government hopes to accelerate spreading of the startup movement:
From digital/technology sector to a wide array of sectors including agriculture, manufacturing, social sector, healthcare, education, etc; and
From existing tier 1 cities to tier 2 and tier 3 cities including semi-urban and rural areas.
The Action Plan envisages setting up of 7 New Research Parks modeled on the Research Park at IIT Madras at IITs in Guwahati, Hyderabad, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Bangalore, Gandhinagar and Delhi and setting-up/scaling-up of 18 Technology Business Incubators (TBI) at NITs/IITs/IIMs etc. as per the funding model of DST.
