The flagship initiative of GoI, Startup India has 50,000 startups as on Thursday. These are the startups that have created 5.5 lakh jobs in a little over five year period.
Startup India Initiative
With the intention to foster and catalyse startup culture and build a strong and inclusive ecosystem for innovation and entrepreneurship in India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 16 January, 2016 launched Startup India initiative. The nodal department for the same is the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
DPIIT said in a statement that with the launch of the Startup India initiative, many startups that have been spread across 623 districts have been recognized. Atleast there is one startup in each state and Union territory. Startup policies to support startups have been specifically announced by the 30 States and UTs. Maharashtra, Karnataka, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat have the greatest number of startups.
Before the initiative, 10,000 startups were added in 808 days, whereas post the initiative it took a period of only 180 days to add the last 10,000 startups. The initiative has seen the number of startups grow exponentially as only 743 startups were recognized in 2016-2017 whereas the number has now increased to 16,000 in 2020-2021.
Benefits across a range of laws, regulations, fiscal and infrastructural support can be availed by the entrepreneurs under the Startup India Policy and this has led to the surge in the startup ecosystem growth.
Startups Have Significant Contribution In Job Creation
With an average number of 11 employees per startup and almost 5,49,842 jobs created by 48,093 startups, recognized startups have contributed significantly to job creation said the DPIIT. In the period 2020-2021, almost 1.7 lakh jobs were created by recognized startups.
Food processing, product development, application development, IT consulting and business support services are the sectors that have had the maximum registered startups. The statement also said that 45% startups have a women entrepreneur in their leadership team, which in turn shall inspire more women entrepreneurs to turn their ideas into startups. DPIIT said that the Startup India has played a pivotal role in strengthening the key pillars identified for our startup economy. Funding opportunities for startups have been enhanced with the Fund okung 10,000 crore Funds and the recently launched Startup India Seed Fund Scheme (SISFS) at 5 945 crore, “said DPIIT.