The government is in the final stages of developing a dedicated policy to foster deep-tech startups, Rajesh Kumar Singh, secretary, department for promotion of industry and internal trade (DPIIT), said on Monday. Delivering his inaugural address at the Startup Mahakumbh, he said inter-ministerial consultations are under way and the policy could be released soon.
“What matters in startups is the ability to commercialise and develop intellectual property rights, it’s not enough to do innovation. Deep tech and extensive R&D is the answer to that. And for the same, the government is in the process of creating a separate dedicated deep-tech startup policy,” he said.
After the release of the national deep tech policy, the government will work on releasing a dedicated fund of funds for the sector.
Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, during her interim Budget speech earlier this year, promised to launch a new scheme to strengthen deep-tech capabilities in the defence sector. She also announced a `1 trillion corpus for supporting the startup ecosystem.
Singh said, “I believe more than funding, startups need orders from the government to give them the start that they deserve. Apart from the `1trillion corpus that has been set up in the interim Budget, DPIIT has recently launched the ‘Bharat Startup Ecosystem Registry’, which will bring together data from all stakeholders to see what is happening in the ecosystem.”
On the growing startup ecosystem, he highlighted that startups are present in 670 out of 700-plus districts in the country. Over 50% of such startups are from tier-two and three cities. Almost 45% have at least one woman director on the board, which shows how broad, inclusive, and widespread the startup ecosystem has become, he said.