The Union Government presented the ambitious Startup India program amid much fanfare on 16th January 2016. The plan was initially announced by the Prime Minister Narendera Modi during his Independence Day speech in 2015. More than 2000 Indian startups, many CEOs and Venture Capitalists from the Silicon Valley as well as India attended the event and held day long workshop on drawing up the action plan for startups. By end of the day, a slew of measures were announced to boost the startup ecosystem in India like 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. This was widely welcomed by the industry leaders.
Listed below are the views of Rajiv Kumar, Founder- StoreHippo, regarding the ‘StartUp India’ initiative covered in various electronic and online publications.
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NDTV 24x7 Programme anchored by Vishnu Som ‘The Buck Stops Here’
“Government should not think about creating few billionaire entrepreneurs but should think about creating millions of smaller entrepreneurs who are not working towards maximizing the profits but working towards innovative ideas for development of the nation.
Watch here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqse9nXnqYo&feature=youtu.be
Business Standard, India Today.in, Gadget 360 degree- An NDTV Venture & Sify News
"With many new E-commerce ventures starting in India, we look forward to the policy as it will address the problems of technology based startups and introduce a friendly business climate."
Financial Express
“The startup India action plan is a welcome move but more than exemption on Income tax; the statutory and regulatory compliance related to various filings like Service Tax returns, MCA filings, TDS returns and various state specific compliances are the ones which consume a lot of time and bogs down a startup. Most of the startups do not start making profits for initial few years, so income tax exemption might not help them as much as would be exemption or deferred timeline for various compliances. Govt. also needs to be careful about the misuse of the exemption as it might also act as another channel for tax savings.”
Web Newswire
“Dedicated Corpus of Funds will greatly help entrepreneurs and startups as a lot of them struggle with funds in the initial stages. However, Govt. must make sure that the funds are judiciously allocated so that a) there is uniform distribution across different industry sectors b) there is limit on funds allocated to one startup. The goal should be to give million entrepreneurs a chance rather than creating only a handful of entrepreneurs.”
Ab Tak News and Pocket News Alert
“Difficulty to access IPR lawyers, steep patent fee and long processes were acting as deterrent for many innovators to go for patents in individual capacity. Until now, patent filing has been mostly restricted to filing through companies. The new proposal will surely accelerate innovation as more and more innovators will go for patents in the individual capacity and will boost India's image at the global front.”
Internet News For You and This week Bangalore.com
The startup India initiative aims to make India as the startup capital of the world. The program will boost the economy, open up job avenues, encourage entrepreneurship on a large scale and leverage start-ups globally. With many new E-commerce ventures starting in India, we eagerly look forward to the policy as it will address the problems of technology based startups and introduce a friendly business climate.
It will further drive the country’s economy towards better results. The Startup India program will delve into the issues faced by startups and ease norms for them.”
The Startup India Action Plan will boost the Indian E-commerce Ecosystem and encourage entrepreneurs, innovations & investments. India ranks third in the world with more than 4,200 startups after US and UK, a number that is expected to rise further in the next couple of years. So, this initiative is a much needed platform to foster the growth of Indian startup ecosystem. The government also proposes to create a new category of business -Innovative Startups, with rules that will make it very easy to start and close a business. The programme also aims to reverse the exodus of technology startups from India. This leads to one simple fact- India needs to boost its economy, create jobs and drive its growth trajectory; and the role of startups is significant to achieve these objectives.
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