Centre joins hands with 5 States to boost their startup policies

In order to give impetus to startups, the Centre will hold detailed discussions at New Delhi with States and other stakeholders on July 23. The main aim of the day-long function is to share knowledge and best practices being followed by other states on promoting budding entrepreneurs, an official said. Representatives of five States, including Kerala, Telangana, Gujarat and Rajasthan will give presentations on their respective startup policies.

Besides, senior State government officials, incubators, startups and angel investors will also participate in the deliberations. The Commerce and Industry Ministry is holding this programme to give a further boost to startups in the country, the official added.

The deliberations assume significance as budding entrepreneurs are facing certain issues related to taxation in their States. The ministry has already asked all the States and the Union Territories to set up 'Startup Hub' as well as incubators to help these entrepreneurs.

The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) has already set up the hub. It helps resolving queries and provides hand-holding support to startups. All these steps are part of the Startup Action Plan announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in January.

The government unveiled a slew of incentives to boost startup businesses, offering them a tax holiday and inspector raj-free regime for three years, capital gains tax exemption and Rs 10,000 crore corpus to fund them.

India has the third-largest number of startups globally.

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Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has asked the Finance ministry to consider raising tax holiday for startups to seven years to encourage budding entrepreneurs.

A few days back, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) had welcomed applications from over 400 budding entrepreneurs for recognition as ‘innovative startups’ to avail tax breaks and other benefits. An inter-ministerial committee assessing such applications has already considered 189 requests, of which 148 applicants have been asked to properly attach relevant documents and 10 applications have been rejected as there was no innovation involved in that, an official said.