Marking the fifth anniversary of his pet project Startup India, launched on January 16 in 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will interact with startups on Saturday featuring more than 200 global speakers from over 25 countries.
The two-day Summit ‘Prarambh: Startup India International Summit’, being organized by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, Ministry of Commerce and Industry will be the largest startup confluence organised by the government of India since the launch of the Startup India initiative.
Through the event, the government seeks to focus on enhancing multilateral cooperation and engagement with countries from around the globe to collectively develop and strengthen the startup ecosystems.
The Summit is being organised as a follow-up of the announcement made by the Prime Minister at the fourth BIMSTEC Summit held in Kathmandu in August 2018 wherein India committed to host the BIMSTEC Startup Conclave.
The Start Up India website says Prarambh is expected to bring together top policy makers, industry, academia, investors, startups and all stakeholders from across the globe.
“The idea is to attain global capital for startups in India, mobilize domestic capital, provide opportunities for accessing international markets to our startups and evolve enabling policy provisions,” it says.
In November last year, a survey claimed that the flagship Start-up scheme witnessed a 57 per cent growth, as the number of government-recognized startups surged attracting investments worth $63 billion in the last five years.
PM Modi launched the program in 2016 with plans to create a fund of Rs 10,000 crore for startups, who were to be exempted from paying income tax on their profit for the following three years. Modi had said youths of India must change from job-seekers to job creators.
The Opposition parties have repeatedly mocked the Start-Up India program of the Modi government, citing unemployment among youths and data of migration for jobs.
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