To provide an enabling ecosystem to support and nurture startups in the state, the West Bengal Government launched the state startup policy at the Bengal Global Business Summit. The policy, a document with eight broad pointers comes complete with a preamble, a vision, the state’s mission, the enabling environment for startups in the state, definitions related to various aspects of a startup alongside defining incentives and procedures to be followed by the startups.
This policy would be in effect from January 1, 2016 to December 31, 2021.
“We have launched the policy ahead of the center so that MSMEs can start the work at the earliest and use all the facilities the state is offering to encourage entrepreneurship,” said Rajiva Sinha, Principal Secretary, Micro and Small Scale Enterprises and Textile.
The preamble of the policy takes off with the statement ‘Silpa Korun Bangla Gorun’ (set up industry to develop Bengal). Defining the mission of the state, the policy states that the authorities would target to create enabling environment and supporting eco-system that facilitates ten thousand startups in the next ten years.
The state will create an Entrepreneurship Development Center Network (EDCN) with universities and leading higher education institutes across all districts in the state to undertake the role of creating entrepreneurial aspiration among the youngsters. The state will provide fund capital expenditure up to Rs 10 lakh to universities in the state to create a EDC. Presidency University is one of the first in the state to be a part of the initiative. Alongside facilitating EDCN institutions to incentive entrepreneurship, the state will also facilitate capacity building capacity building of EDCN institutions through active collaboration with leading technical business incubators (TBI) in the state. The state would facilitate setting up of new incubators in government as well as private sector.
Lease of land from preferential lease of land from state government as per its land policy to government recognized TBIs in the state too would be facilitated. 20% of space available will be earmarked in existing and forthcoming Industrial estate, SME Clusters and Rural Craft Hub having common facility center for startups during their Proof of Concept (POC) development stage.
The policy allows startups to access government R&D labs through MSME Technology Facilitation Center set up by the State Government in partnership with CSIR (Council of Scientific & Industrial Research).
The Directorate of MSME would act as the nodal agency to the Innovation Enabler Mechanism that would be set up by the state to address the statutory compliance issues of the initiatives.
A digital platform startupbengal.in will connect all the eco-system stakeholders, network of support, funding and service providers to enable seamless access for startups. There would also be a digital application gateway to WB MSME Equity Fund. The policy also mentions that any fiscal incentive available under the state government policy will be applicable to startups too.
Source: The Economic Times
