Modi pledges big measures to boost India’s entrepreneurs

This fund, launched by the Prime Minister Modi in September 2015 during the Startup Konnect event in California, will support innovation and innovative startups in areas of healthcare and life-sciences, sustainability, and digital technologies.

President Pranab Mukherjee has said that India has “woken up” too late on startups and owned up responsibility for the delay, while noting that he had been in administration earlier.

“Why can’t 2 per cent natural juice be mixed in aerated drinks?”

Modi´s high-profile event in New Delhi – attended by hundreds of investors and entrepreneurs, including the founder of taxi-hailing app Uber, Travis Kalanick – promised a shot in the arm for the sector, with exemptions from tax and compliance inspections for three years.

During the day-long event, several interactive sessions were held with stakeholders, ministers and mandarins on topics ranging from innovation and funding to promoting women entrepreneurs and mentoring.

The Prime Minister said he wishes to turn the youth of India from job-seekers to job-creators. It is about employing even five people and developing India. Samay Kohli, CEO of GreyOrange, said, “We are a bunch, who started Grey Orange because we couldn’t find a company, which was building hardware and robotics in India”.

He said a dedicated Start-up fund worth Rs. 10,000 crore will be created for funding of Start-ups.

He said successful start-ups are usually created by those who are driven by an idea, or an urge to solve a problem that people face.

“Start-ups will be exempted from paying income tax on their income for the first three- years”.

“When we say “Make in India” we also say ‘Make for India.’ India is a great market”, he added. Along with this the Government will also launch Stand Up India scheme under which Bank branches will lend to entrepreneurs belonging to SC/ STs and Women.

The government today launched an action plan on ‘Start-up India, ‘ envisaging for itself the role of a “facilitator” for investments, promising to cut the maze of red tape that has hampered the country’s economic growth for decades and squeezed employment opportunities.

Lauding the entrepreneurs for cultivating start-ups and development, Modi stated that a startup succeeding’s likelihood depends on the chance getting capability of the businessman.