NEW DELHI: India will soon have its first start-up district with incubation centres and about 20 tinkering labs for schools aimed at encouraging the creation of innovative solutions in agriculture, health and education.
Commerce & Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who is a Rajya Sabha MP from Karnataka, is keen for the entire cluster to be developed in Mangalore.
The government will fund the effort and ensure that roads, electricity and digital networks are provided for the one of the largest upcoming incubation facilities in the country.
While the cost has not been assessed, a person familiar with the development said, “Government will put all its weight behind it in terms of making resources available. The idea is also to expand the startup drive in cities other than Bengaluru and Hyderabad.“
The incubation centres will provide specialised services for sectors including agriculture, medicine and pharma, along with information technology.
The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion and the NITI Aayog will throw open a grand challenge in March to select the institution that will operate the incubation centres and the school-level tinkering labs.
“Innovation has to be encouraged right from the school level… It is a good budding ground for future entrepreneurs, hence there will be a significant thrust on schools“, a senior government official said.
Incubators provide start-ups space to operate and be mentored so that they can scale up their business.
There is a paucity of incubators in the country and the government is trying to fill this gap by roping in private organisations to provide mentorship facilities to entrepreneurs.
The government wants to encourage start-ups to provide innovative solutions for challenges unique to India, especially in education, health, manufacturing, agriculture and infrastructure, and not just be skewed towards developing apps. Government departments have been asked to suggest areas where start-ups can pitch in with ideas.
The multi-level incubation centres and the tinkering labs are proposed to have best practices exchange with Indian Institute of Technology Madras.
“Venture capital funding for startu-ps is drying up and quality needs to be built… Any such support from government will be great for budding entrepreneurs“, said Rajat Tandon, President of Indian Private Equity and Venture Capital Association.
The government plans to create sector-specific incubators under the Atal Innovation Mission along with 500 tinkering labs to promote entrepreneurship, provide pre-incubation training and a seed fund for high-growth startups as part of the Start-Up India Action Plan announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in January 2016. Getting credentials from a certified incubation centre is one of the requirements for startups to get tax exemption.
Source: Times of India
