While addressing the joint sitting of Parliament on Thursday, President Ram Nath Kovind said with the aim of establishing 50,000 startups by 2024, strong steps will be taken by the government, to further strengthen the startup ecosystem in the country.
Kovind said that India has joined the league of countries with the most number of startups in the world.
“To improve the startup ecosystem, the government is simplifying the rules. This campaign will be further expedited. Our goal is to establish 50,000 startups in the country by 2024,” he said.
The startup India initiative of the government was started in 2016 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi that aims at fostering entrepreneurship and promoting innovation by creating an ecosystem that is conducive to the growth of budding entrepreneurs.
While, till date, as many as 19,303 startups have been recognised by the government.
Since last year, the commerce and industry ministry has started conducting ranking exercise of states and union territories to encourage them take proactive steps towards strengthening the ecosystems within their jurisdictions for budding entrepreneurs.
Recently, the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) suggested for setting up of 500 new incubators and accelerators by 2024. Around 100 innovation zones in urban local bodies, deployment of entire corpus of Rs 10,000 crore Fund of Funds, and expanding CSR funding to incubators.
Furthermore, ‘Startup India Vision 2024‘ initiative was started by DPIIT that includes setting up of Rs 1,000 crore ‘India startup fund’ to support high technology startups; providing Rs 1,000 crore of seed funding, and activation of seven research parks by 2024.