DBT Bureau
Pune, 4 August 2024
Under the Startup India initiative, the Government has implemented various measures to foster the development and growth of the startup ecosystem in the country. Key schemes such as the Fund of Funds for Startups (FFS), Startup India Seed Fund Scheme (SISFS), and Credit Guarantee Scheme for Startups (CGSS) support startups at different stages of their business journey, helping them reach a point where they can attract investments from angel investors or venture capitalists, or secure loans from commercial banks or financial institutions. As of July 31, 2024, this support has led to over 1.43 lakh DPIIT-recognized startups operating in India.
Initiatives taken by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (‘MeitY’) in this direction are as follows:
I. Technology Incubation and Development of Entrepreneurs (TIDE 2.0) Scheme: MeitY initiated the TIDE 2.0 scheme in 2019 with an outlay of Rs 264.62 crores over 5 years. It extends financial and technical support to institutes of higher learning and premier R&D organizations engaged in supporting ICT startups using emerging technologies. To date, 51 TIDE 2.0 Incubation Centres have been supported and made operational.
II. Startup Accelerator of MeitY for Product Innovation, Development, and Growth (SAMRIDH) Scheme: The SAMRIDH Scheme was launched to support existing and upcoming accelerators to select and accelerate potential IT-based start-ups to scale to solve India’s technological challenges and hence create a positive social impact. The SAMRIDH scheme will provide support to selected accelerators for extending accelerator services to start-ups along with one-to-one matching funding support of up to Rs 40 lakh. In the first round of cohort, 22 accelerators in the country have been selected across 14 states and 12 cities to support 175 startups. These accelerators comprise government-supported organizations, Academic Institutions, Corporate Accelerators & Investment Firms.
III. Next Generation Incubation Scheme (NGIS): NGIS has been approved to support the software product ecosystem and to address a significant portion of the National Policy on Software Product (NPSP) 2019. The Scheme is proposed to be launched from 12 locations i.e. Agartala, Bhilai, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Dehradun, Guwahati, Jaipur, Lucknow & Prayagraj, Mohali/Chandigarh, Patna & Vijayawada. The Scheme has solution-oriented architecture and aims to handhold 300 Tech startups in Tier-2/3 cities over 3 years with a total budget outlay of Rs 95.03 crores.
IV. Domain-specific Centres of Excellence (CoEs): MeitY has envisaged and operationalised 42 Centres Of Excellence (CoEs) in diverse areas of national interest for driving self-sufficiency and creating capabilities to capture new and emerging technology areas. These domain-specific CoEs act as enablers and aid in making India an innovation hub in emerging technologies through democratisation of innovation and realisation of prototypes.
V. Theme-based Incubation Centre: To bring innovation led Electronic systems and design manufacturing, Entrepreneur Parks have been established through STPI New Delhi, Makers Village in Cochin Kerala, IIIT Patna and Government of Bihar on Medical Electronics and Fabless Chip Design Incubation Centre at IIT Hyderabad.
The government has supported about 10,000+ tech startups through various startup support schemes/programmes being implemented by relevant line-Ministries/ Departments in the last five years with a total funding disbursed of approximately Rs 580 crore to startups through incubators including 3600+ tech startups supported by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) with a total funding disbursed of Rs 212 crore.
This information was given by the Minister of State for Electronic & Information Technology, Jitin Prasada in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha.
