Government inducts private orgs for Startup India Action Plan

The government has decided to include private organizations also as incubators under the Startup India Action Plan, besides the government-run 278 incubators. Twenty organizations, including Nasscom and iSprit, have been certified approve and recommend startups for the program.

"There is a lack of right kind of incubators. We need to provide sector-specific services, which we are trying to do in our warehouses," said Rajat Tandon, vice president of Nasscom. There is a paucity of incubators and to fill this gap, the government is trying to engage private organizations for providing mentorship facilities to entrepreneurs.

The move will help in growing the reach of incubators for upcoming startups. Incubators provide a set up where multiple startups are given space to operate and are mentored to scale up their business to a certain level.

"We will make this list available to startups, so there is a wider base of incubators available for them to reach out to," a senior government official said. Last month, the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) received 571 applications from startups wanting to avail the tax benefits announced in the Startup India Action Plan. So far, only two startups have managed to get the approval of the inter-ministerial board for tax and intellectual property rights-related benefits.

DIPP has formed a monitoring committee headed by DIPP Secretary Ramesh Abhishek to take stock of the action plan's implementation once a month. 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 Startup India Action Plan announced by PM Narendra Modi in January.

DIPP has also started mapping incubation centers across the country with a special focus on tier-II and III cities.