Union Minister of State for Science and Technology Dr Jitendra Singh on April 10 said the number of Startups in India has grown by 300 times over the last nine years. He was speaking at the National Innovation Awards at Rashtrapati Bhavan.
Dr Jitendra Singh, who is also Minister of State in PMO, said that as compared to 350 startups in 2014, now the country has more than 90,000 startups with over 100 unicorns. The Minister underlined that Biotech StartUps also went up from around 50 to nearly 6000 during the period.
He attributed this growth to PM Modi’s special startup scheme in 2016 and the opening up of the space and biotech sectors to private participation. Dr Jitendra Singh also praised the National Innovation Awards winners, saying they demonstrated that there is no linkage between formal education and innovation capabilities. The awards were presented in different categories, and two of the recipients were Padma Shri awardees for their innovations.
Startup India is a flagship initiative launched by the Government of India on January 16, 2016, to build a strong ecosystem for nurturing innovation and startups in the country, which will drive economic growth and generate large-scale employment opportunities. On January 25, 2022, PM Modi said — “Our startups are changing the rules of the game. That’s why I believe startups are going to be the backbone of new India… Today India is rapidly moving towards hitting the century of the unicorns. I believe the golden era of India’s startups is starting now.”
The action plan of the StartUp India initiative has been to focus on three areas: Simplification and Handholding. Funding Support and Incentives.
Dr Jitendra Singh said that India had no dearth of talent, capability, innovation and creativity in the youth, but they were lacking a favourable milieu and proper patronage from the political leadership which was provided by PM Modi.
“It is also now evident that we have so much of innovative talent even in our rural youth and there is no linkage between formal education degree and innovation capabilities which is evident from the awards given today”.
Dr Jitendra Singh said that this issue was also sought to be addressed by PM Modi by bringing in National Education Policy 2020 which gives emphasis to skill and not only to academic degrees; it also prepares the individual for earning livelihood according to his or her aptitude and skill.
Since the launch of Startup India initiative in 2016, the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) has recognised 92,683 entities as startups as on February 28 2023.
It is true that the Government has taken several steps to promote startups across the country.
Some of these programmes were namely – Startup India Action Plan; Fund of Funds for Startups (FFS) Scheme; Credit Guarantee Scheme for Startups (CGSS); Regulatory Reforms; Ease of Procurement; Support for Intellectual Property Protection; Self-Certification under Labour and Environmental laws; International Market Access to Indian Startups.
An amount of Rs 40,710 crore was sanctioned to over 0.18 million accounts under the Government’s flagship Stand Up India Scheme during the last seven years since its inception.
Of the funds sanctioned till March 21, 2023, about 80 per cent of the loans have been given to women entrepreneurs, sources said.
