The Union government has empowered more than 10,000 technology startups over the last five years through various schemes, according to Jitin Prasada, Minister of State for Electronics & Information Technology, in a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha.
The Centre disbursed a total of Rs 580 crore in funding to startups through incubators, including over 3,600 tech startups supported by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), which received Rs 212 crore. Under the Startup India initiative, “the government undertook flagship schemes such as the Fund of Funds for Startups (FFS), Startup India Seed Fund Scheme (SISFS), and Credit Guarantee Scheme for Startups (CGSS),” Prasada said. These schemes helped startups raise investments from angel investors, venture capitalists, or secure loans.
Prasada mentioned that, with the help of these schemes, there are over 1.43 lakh startups in India recognized by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT). MeitY’s initiatives include Technology Incubation and Development of Entrepreneurs (TIDE 2.0), Startup Accelerator of MeitY for Product Innovation, Development, and Growth (SAMRIDH), Next Generation Incubation Scheme (NGIS), Domain-specific Centres of Excellence (CoEs), and Theme-based Incubation Centres. TIDE 2.0, launched by MeitY in 2019 with an outlay of Rs 264.62 crore over five years, extends financial and technical support to institutes of higher learning and premier R&D organizations.
SAMRIDH supports selected accelerators by extending services to startups along with one-to-one matching funding support of up to Rs 40 lakh. The NGIS scheme, with a budget of Rs 95.03 crore, aims to support 300 tech startups in Tier-2/3 cities over three years. MeitY has also operationalized 42 CoEs to make India an innovation hub for emerging technologies.
Entrepreneur parks have been established through STPI New Delhi, Makers Village in Cochin, Kerala, IIIT-Patna, and the government of Bihar for medical electronics, and a Fabless chip design incubation centre at IIT-Hyderabad to boost innovation-led electronic system and design manufacturing.
