Startup India Action Plan 2016 Highlights
Startup India campaign is based on an action plan aimed at promoting bank financing for start-up ventures to boost entrepreneurship and encourage start ups with jobs creation. The campaign was first announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his 15 August.
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.
Salient features of the scheme are as follow:
Simplification and Handholding
- 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.