There's a visible gap in awareness when it comes to government schemes and the Indian Startup industry. While every now and then the government keeps launching some new initiatives or schemes tailored made for the industry, its seldom that we get to see or read about fruitful results of these schemes. For example, only 39 Indian startups have been able to pass the eligibility for tax benefits for Modi government's much-hyped Startup India programme since its launch 18 months ago in January, 2016 (Read Here).

In order to address this worrying situation, Startup India Virtual Hub, which was launched by Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in June, has now decided to work on a new initiative that would make Indian startups more aware about government schemes and venture funds and help them directly apply for the same from their platform.

The Hub, which is a marketplace where all the stakeholders can interact, exchange knowledge, and enable each other to grow and reach new heights, is an attempt by the Ministry solve the persistent problem of information asymmetry and lack of access to knowledge, tools, experts, especially in the nascent ecosystems across Tier II and III towns in the country.

Within a week of its launch in June, The Hub partnered with Collaborizm, an online, New York-based, collaboration community and tech incubator to help provide Indian tech startups and entrepreneurs with an opportunity to engage with like-minded teammates from all around the world and provide an edge to their innovative project ideas.

As of today, the Startup India Hub portal has listed 167 schemes that would help Indian startups in one or another way. Some of the schemes listed include- Performance & Credit Rating Scheme, Technology Development Programme, Support for International Patent Protection, Software Technology Park scheme and Electronic Development Fund Policy.

In order to make sure that the Startup India Hub doesn't end up anything like any other government scheme, the ministry has decided to host an all-stakeholder event in August that would witness active involvement of accelerators, incubators and venture funds.
Advertisements

Post a Comment

Previous Post Next Post
Like this content? Sign up for our daily newsletter to get latest updates.