The Union Budget presented by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Saturday proposed to establish an Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) and Rs 1,000 crore fund for start-ups, giving a fillip to India’s ongoing journey to be the innovation centre of the world.
As per the Budget proposal, the AIM will be part of the NITI Ayog, and provide an Innovation Promotion Platform involving academicians, drawing upon national and international experiences.
A sum of Rs 150 crore is proposed to be earmarked for the mission to enhance research and development.
Presenting the budget, Jaitley said promotion of start-ups and entrepreneurs, particularly in the technology sector, is the need of the hour.
“We are now seeing a growing interest in start-ups. Experimenting in cutting-edge technologies, creating value out of ideas and initiatives, and creating them into scalable enterprises and businesses is at the core of our strategy,” he said.
The minister also pointed out that the Information Technology (IT) and the IT-enabled Services sector has raked in revenue worth $119 billion in 2014-15, and directly employs about 40 lakh people.
“To engage our youth for the country's inclusive and sustainable growth, concerns such as more liberal system of raising global capital, incubation facilities in our centres of excellence, funding for seed capital and ease of doing business need to be addressed to create a lakh jobs and hundreds of billions of dollars in value,” said Jaitley.
He added: “With this objective, the government is creating a mechanism known as Self Employment and Talent Utilisation (SETU), to be a techno-financial incubation and facilitation programme to support all aspects of start-up businesses and other self-employment activities, particularly in the technology-driven areas. I am setting aside Rs 1,000 crore initially for this purpose.”
Fourth in global ranking
According to the Economic Survey 2014-15, India has emerged as the world’s fourth-largest hub for start-ups, with over 3,100 of them, driven by “hyper-growth” in technology and software products in the country.
Talking to Deccan Herald, Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan, also a mentor at the Start-up village, said there are multiple announcements within this budget to significantly improve the start-up ecosystem in India.
“I appreciate initiatives like SETU and funding of Rs 1,000 crore for it, streamlining and encouraging foreign funds to locate within India, including fund managers, educational loan scheme for deserving poor students, focus and funding for Research and Development, and several initiatives on ease of doing business, which will help small businesses in the country,” he said.
Published 28 February 2015, 22:10 IST