‘Start Up India’: Boosting India’s entrepreneurs

Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the ‘Start Up India’ movement on Saturday in New Delhi aiming at fostering the growth of entrepreneurship in India, talking of the various features of his government’s ambitious action plan and urging them to play a transformative role in the country’s development.

The largest start up conference attended by CEOs and hundreds of young entrepreneurs across the country and abroad, the scheme includes new policies and initiatives that would help the investors and start up founders to incubate their ventures. PM Modi during his Independence Day address last year had spoken about initiating the ‘Start Up India’ program. According to the program, the requirements for minimum turnovers and minimum operating years would be brought down to benefit the start-ups besides the huge incentives announced to promote their growth. The government promised minimum interference with 6 labour laws and 3 environmental laws that are likely to cause hindrance unable to affect them. The Prime Minister said that the start-ups would be registered in a day using mobile apps through self certification and would receive faster approvals. The start-ups set up after April 1, 2016 would be exempted from paying income tax for a period of three years. Rs 10, 000-crore corpus would be released for innovation-driven enterprises and also incorporating a Rs 500 crore per year credit guarantee mechanism. The start-up companies would benefit from cheaper and faster patent applications. Besides a mobile app, a portal would be rolled out for interacting with the government and regulatory institutions. They may wind up within a period of 90 days from making of an application for winding up on a fast track basis if the venture fails.

The huge incentives announced as well as the statements of the PM and his Finance Minister prove that the Centre is well aware of the sluggish economy. The country which overlooks a bleak future with severe economic crisis, drought and food shortage needs to create more employment opportunities and support new businesses in order to improve its current predicament. If the Modi government works committed towards implementing what he announced before the world, India could hope for a better future. The government would have to analyse, ensure rightful implementation along with sticking to changes and be vigilant. Else it would be similar to the move by the Congress-led government in 1991 that freed the country from Licence Raj. Narasimha Rao, along with his finance minister Manmohan Singh announced the move to tackle the financial instability. Therefore PM Modi and his Finance Minister should be vigilant enough while moving ahead. The fact that the Prime Minister had to speak about eliminating the threat of inspector raj even quarter a decade after announcing the freedom from Licence Raj is pitiable. No skepticisms remain about the failure of the scheme if the Modi government moves ahead with vested interests. Let the Centre move ahead on the right track and the movement is sure to succeed bringing in hopes for the generations to come.