In response to a written question in the Rajya Sabha, Jitin Prasada, the Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, stated that over 10,000 technology companies had received support from the Union government over the past five years through a variety of programs.
Through incubators, the Center has given entrepreneurs a total of Rs 580 crore in funding. Of these, over 3,600 tech startups have received funding from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), which has given out Rs 212 crore in total.
“The government undertook flagship schemes such as Fund of Funds for Startups (FFS), Startup India Seed Fund Scheme (SISFS), and Credit Guarantee Scheme for Startups (CGSS)” as part of the Startup India drive, according to Prasada.
These programs assisted new businesses in obtaining loans or funding from angel or venture capitalists.
According to Prasada, the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) has recognized approximately 1.43 lakh entrepreneurs working in India thanks to these schemes.
MeitY’s initiatives include the Theme-based Incubation Center, Domain specific Centers of Excellence (CoEs), Next Generation Incubation Scheme (NGIS), Startup Accelerator of MeitY for Product Innovation, Development, and Growth (SAMRIDH), and Technology Incubation and Development of Entrepreneurs (TIDE 2.0), according to Prasada.
MeitY launched TIDE 2.0 in 2019 with a five-year, Rs 264.62 crore budget, with the goal of providing leading R&D organizations and higher education institutions with both financial and technical support.
Combining one-to-one matching capital support of up to Rs 40 lakh with accelerator services for entrepreneurs is one of the ways that SAMRIDH supports a subset of accelerators.
With a three-year budget of Rs 95.03 million, the solution-oriented design of the NGIS Scheme aims to support 300 tech firms in Tier-2/3 cities.
In addition, MeitY has conceptualized and implemented 42 CoEs to help India become a center of innovation for developing technology.
In order to support innovation-led electronic system and design manufacturing, entrepreneur parks have also been built through STPI New Delhi, Makers Village in Cochin, Kerala, IIIT-Patna, and the government of Bihar on medical electronics. Additionally, the IIT-Hyderabad Fabless Chip Design Incubation Center has been established.
