Startups in India

More than 8,40,000 jobs created by Startups in country.

• More than eight lakh 40 thousand jobs have been created by the Startups in the country. These jobs have been generated by 84 thousand government recognized start-ups. This was stated by Union MSME Minister Narayan Rane in a written reply in the Lok Sabha.
• He said, these start-ups are spread in 640 districts with 45 percent of them being from tier-2 and tier-3 cities. He said, more than 100 Indian start-ups have achieved the status of Unicorn.
• The Minister added that the government has taken a comprehensive approach under the Startups initiative which has helped the country to become the third largest start-ups ecosystem in the world.

Startups in India

• Startup India Initiative: Since the launch of the initiative in January 2016, more than 69,000 startups have been recognized in the country till May2022.
• Sectors: They were launched across 56 diverse sectors, including:
  • 13% from IT services,
  • 9% from health and life sciences,
  • 7% from education,
  • 5% from professional and commercial services,
  • 5% from agriculture, and
  • 5% food and beverage.
• Government Data:As per data from the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, the number of people employed in start-ups covered under the Start-up India initiative stood at about 1.74 lakh in 2021.

Initiatives for Promoting Startups

• Atmanirbhar Bharat: Digital India Atmanirbhar Bharat App Innovation Challenge.
• Make in India: Promotion to indigenously made goods and services under the initiative.
• Start-Up India Programme: A flagship initiative, intended to build a strong eco-system for nurturing innovation and start-ups in the country to drive sustainable economic growth and generate large scale employment opportunities.
• Start-up India Digital Platform: It is the world’s largest virtual incubator with over 300,000 registered start-ups and aspiring entrepreneurs.
• Start-up Grand Challenge: It channelizes the entrepreneurial capacity between Indian and Korean start-ups to work together and build solutions for the challenges facing the world.
• Atal Innovation Mission (AIM): Launched by NITI Aayog as a flagship programme, it aims to promote a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship in India.
• Some initiatives of AIM are AIM iCREST and Mentors of Change.
• Project Chunauti: It is a start-up challenge under the Next Generation Incubation Scheme (NGIS) initiative. Selected startups are provided human resources, legal, intellectual property rights (IPR) and Patent matters guidance as well as other incubation and mentorship facilities.
• National Initiative for Developing and Harnessing Innovations (NIDHI): It is an umbrella programme for nurturing ideas and innovations (knowledge-based and technology-driven) into successful startups.
• Other Reforms: Reforms such as opening up sectors like space-tech for private participation, tax holidays for startups fulfilling certain eligibility criteria such as annual turnover and year of incorporation to tide over working capital requirements, and creation of state-run incubators, among many, are lowering the odds of establishing successful startups and helping them grow.