What Is StartUp India ?
A Primer on India's Flagship Scheme to promote Entrepreneurship
Keeping in mind India’s massive population and the immense youth bulge that the nation is facing demographically, the national need to provide adequate employment and wealth-creation opportunities for the youth has now acquired an importance of immense proportion, upon whose solution hinges the fate of the country. This immense youth bulge, indicated in our national statistics, where 66% of the population is below the age of 35 and the median age is 25, is a massive challenge for the country as the need to provide them with adequate opportunities employment and self-actualization cannot be sufficiently fulfilled with simple creation of public and private sector jobs. Keeping these limitations in mind, the need to boost self-employment and entrepreneurship in the country has become a challenge of paramount importance. In recognition of this situation and the solutions provided by the field of entrepreneurship, the Government of India has launched the scheme of StartUp India designed to encourage young technically-talented Indians to provide solutions to India’s various problems and to support them in their endeavour to commercialise and grow the nation’s economy.
StartUp India is the chief flagship initiative of the Modi Government in its efforts to promote tech-fueled innovation and entrepreneurship in the country. Launched in 2016, in the august presence of the Honourable Prime Minister and the late Finance Minister Shri Aru Jaitley, the program aims to transform India into a nation of job-creators rather than job-seekers by building an innovative, supportive and strong ecosystem that promotes sustainable economic growth and generation of large-scale employment opportunities by means of promoting entrepreneurship.
In order to qualify for the scheme, a company must satisfy a set of criteria in order to fully utilise all the benefits of the scheme. Some of the benefits of the scheme include easier compliance, easier bankruptcy code and exit-process for start-ups, provision of legal support and exemption from income taxes and capital gains tax. In order to provide technical assistance and support, the Government has also created various incubator programmes in order to guide and facilitate the growth and management of these startups,and also accelerators which would play a vital role in assisting the growth stage startups scale up efficiently and evolve into larger businesses generating employment and wealth. Most recently, in this very year 2022, the Government has launched StartUp India Seed Fund Scheme in order to provide financial assistance to startups for proof of concept, prototype development, product trials, market entry, and commercialization. The StartUp India scheme also hosts various hackathons in relation to different sectors of the economy that can benefit from technology-enabled startup solutions and also in relation to new technology schemes launched by the government such as ONDC. The government also hosts National StartUp Awards to provide recognition to startup ventures that are able to attract more business, financing, partnerships, and talent while also inspiring them to be purposeful and responsible about their socio-economic impact, and enable them to serve as a role model for other entities.
In view of all the various features and benefits of StartUp India Scheme, it is incumbent upon all young entrepreneurs to chase their dreams and attempt for themselves to be job-creators rather than job-seekers. The golden age of entrepreneurship in India has just begun and there is a long way to go for us all.