“When I heard Ritesh ( Founder of Oyo Rooms) speak, I thought how a tea seller like me didn’t think of setting up a hotel chain.” Said PM Narendra Modi at the Startup India Mission in Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi, energising and inspiring many young entrepreneurs’s to think big. The event was inaugurated by the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and more than 40 Top CEO’s joined in to support one of the PM Modi’s most ambitious initiatives to boost up startup ecosystem of our country. Some of the top CEO’s were Travis Kalanick Founder of Uber, Adam Neumann CEO of WeWork, Flipkart founder Sachin Bansal, Ola’s founder Bhavish Aggarwal, Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Snapdeal’s Kunal Bahl, Shopclues founder Radhika Agarwal, Oyo Rooms founder Ritesh Agarwal and many more.
Here’s everything you need to know about the Startup India mission started by our PM Modi to start the big bang boom in the startup sector.
1) Rs 10,000 Crore funds for innovation-driven enterprises.
The government will set up a fund with an initial corpus of Rs 2,500 crore and a total corpus of Rs 10,000 crore over a period of 4 years for the support, development and growth of innovation-driven enterprises.
2) Credit guarantee mechanism via NCGTC
To boost up the entrepreneurial spirit, the government will mobilise credits to innovators across all sections of society, a credit guarantee mechanism will be set up via National Credit Guarantee Trust Company/SIDBI. It will be rolled out with a budgetary corpus of Rs 500 Cr per year for the next four years.
3) Exemption from Capital Gains Tax
Capital gain tax exemption for investment in newly formed MSMEs by individuals shall be extended to all startups.
4) Tax exemption for startups for three years
To promote exponential growth in startups, Post April 1st, 2016, all startups shall be exempted from income-tax for a period of three years.
5) Tax exemption on investments above Fair Market Value
Investments made by incubators above FMV will be exempted. Exemption available to venture capital funds to invest in startups above fair market value (FMV).
6) The ambitious Atal Innovation Mission
The Program is launched to promote entrepreneurship in which government will be establishing sector specific incubators, 500 tinkering labs with 3D Printers in universities. Also, the program will provide pre-incubation training to potential entrepreneurs, it will also strengthen the existing incubation facilities.
The mission will also focus on boosting innovation by promoting and setting up Institution of Innovation Awards which will be three per state and three at the national level. The government will also launch Grand Innovation Challenge Awards for finding a low-cost solution to India’s pressing problems. It will also provide support to State Innovation councils by creating awareness and organising state level workshops/conferences.
7) 35 new incubators in institutions
For the establishments of the new incubators in existing institutions 40% funding support will be provided by the central govt. (Not more than Rs.10 crore). The respective state government will be responsible for 40% of funding and rest 20% funding will be taken up by the private sector.
8) Easing in Compliance, Self-Certification
To ease the regulatory burden, startups now will be able to self-certify compliance with labour and environment laws. There will be no inspection for three years pertaining labour laws, and in the case of environment laws, startups under ‘white’ category can self-certify compliance.
9) Simple Process for filing
An online portal and mobile app will be launched in April that will have a short form to fill for entrepreneurs to register their startup.
10) Fast tracking of patents
IP rights and patent protection have been a grave concern for Indian startups. So to enhance IP procedures and make it transparent, the government will initiate a fast-track mechanisms for startup patent applications.
11) Legal Support for patent application
A panel of facilitators will provide legal support in the filing of patents and applications related to patents, trademarks and design under relevant Acts. The government will bear the entire fees of the facilitators for any number of patents, trademarks or designs.
12) 80% rebate on patent filing
Patents are costly, so to enable startups and reduce costs in the early stage startups will be provided with an 80% rebate in filing patents.
13) Relaxed norms in public procurement
To empower early stage startups in comparison with experienced companies in public procurement, startups in the manufacturing sector will be exempted from the criteria of prior ‘experience/turnover’ excluding any relaxation in quality standards and technical parameters.
14) 7 new research parks to be set up.
The government will set up seven new research parks, six in IITs and one in IISc with an initial investment of Rs. 100 crore each. These parks will enable companies with a research focus to set up base and leverage the expertise of academic institution. In total 13 startup centres, 31 centres of innovation and 18 technology business incubators in national institutions will be established.
15) Programmes focused on innovation for students.
To foster innovation from the early age in students, Innovation core program will be initiated with an outreach to 10 lakh innovations from five lakh schools. Uchhattar Avishkar Yojana has earmarked Rs 250 crore per annum towards fostering ‘very high quality’ research amongst IIT students. A Grand Challenge Program called National Initiative for Developing and Harnessing Innovations will be set up to support and award Rs 10 lakhs to 20 student innovations from Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development Centres.
