PM Modi’s Startup India: Govt-recognised startups jump 60% in 12 months; this many registered so far

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pet scheme to make India a startup hub – Startup India has crossed the 40,000-mark for startups recognized by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT). The number of recognized startups so far – 40,729, as per the government data, has increased 63.4 per cent over the past 12 months from 24,927 startups recognized by DPIIT as of November 17, 2019. In fact, the government investment promotion agency Invest India had tweeted the same day that 26 startups are being recognized by DPIIT every day. Moreover, the government’s citizen engagement platform MyGovIndia had tweeted that each recognized startup employs an average of 12 people. Launched in January 2016 by PM Modi, DPIIT startups under the Startup India programme had created 1,54,558 jobs in 2019 up from 95,338 jobs in 2018 and 49,648 in 2017.

According to the data shared by the Ministry of Commerce with Financial Express Online earlier, 8,939 startups were recognized till March 2018. The recognised startups under DPIIT are entitled to self-compliance under three environmental and six labour laws, exemption from paying income tax for three consecutive years along with exemption on capital gains and investments above fair market value. The benefits include up to 80 per cent rebate in filing patents and winding up within 90 days under Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016.

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Importantly, startups registered on the Startup India portal don’t qualify for DPIIT benefits while they can apply for various acceleration, incubator programmes, and other challenges on the website along with accessing resources such as like learning and development programmes, government schemes, state polices for startups, and more. For DPIIT recognition, startups are required to apply separately to avail other benefits such as access to intellectual property services, relaxation in public procurement norms, easy winding of company, access to SIDBI Fund of Funds.

According to the government data, SIDBI had committed Rs 3123.20 crore to 47 SEBI registered Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs) as of February 18, 2020. These funds have raised Rs 25,728 crore corpus and have invested Rs 3,378.47 crore into 320 startups out of which Rs 912.91 crore have been drawn from Fund of Funds for Startups. Instead of investing directly invest in startups, Fund of Funds provides capital to AIFs, known as daughter funds, that further invest in startups through equity and equity-linked instruments.