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Centre moots electronic development fund for startups
Hailing the Modi government’s 'Digital India' campaign as a revolutionary plan to bridge the gap between the digital haves and have-nots, Ravi Shankar Prasad said the entire profile of India will change in the next four to five years.
Trivandrum: Inspired by the rapid strides made by India’s first telecom and technology start-up in Kerala’s port city of Cochin, Federal Minister for Communication and Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad on Sunday said that the Central government would set up an electronic development fund for the startups across the country.
After a visit to the Startup Village at Kalamassery, the minister has recommended replication of Kerala’s Startup Village model in other states in India to boost entrepreneurship. He said that the government was ready to partner with startups in IT, electronics and manufacturing, with angel funds.
“In order to promote entrepreneurship in IT, the federal government has come up with the concept of electronic development fund with the government partnering with angel funds to fund startups in IT, electronics and manufacturing,” the Minister said. “I am very happy that Kerala has done a good work. We need to replicate it,” he added.
Hailing the Modi government’s 'Digital India' campaign as a revolutionary plan to bridge the gap between the digital haves and have-nots, Ravi Shankar Prasad said the entire profile of India will change in the next four to five years.
“We propose to connect 250,000 village panchayats across the country with a national optical fibre network in the next three years. Kerala is doing very well in this. By the end of this financial year, all village panchayats in the state will have the national optical fibre network. E-education, e-commerce and e-health will ride on that,” the minister noted.
He pointed out that 65 per cent of India’s population is under 35 years of age and 50 per cent is under 25. “I feel very happy coming to Startup Village and looking at young India explore new frontiers in IT. India has got nine billion mobile phones and three billion Internet connections. We have to make them more effective and more accessible and promote entrepreneurship in this field.”
He said India can have dozens of Silicon Valleys as many Indians are doing well in IT professions abroad and many of them are coming back. “The federal government is promoting electronic manufacturing in a big way by giving many incentives to electronic clusters across the country, the minister said, adding that “until now, we have received investment proposals worth Rs180 billion from foreign players and others in the field of electronic manufacturing. Out of this, around Rs400 billion worth of projects have been approved.”
“As for the incentives, if a state government or any other body provides 100 acres of land for setting up manufacturing units, the federal government will provide a funding support of Rs500 million straight away. Also, for every Rs100 invested by someone in a factory, the government of India will invest Rs25. This is apart from the incentives given by the state,” he added.
news@khaleejtimes.com
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