India has distinguished itself in the global start-up ecosystem, and today start-ups are no longer confined to big cities – and even smaller towns and villages are emerging as vibrant start-up centres, PM Modi said recently.
“The government has tried to bring the start-up innovation culture down to tier II and tier III cities and even to rural areas, which so far, were limited to tier I cities only. Today, 44 per cent of the start-ups are found in tier II and tier III cities of India. Moreover, almost 45 per cent of the start-ups are founded by women entrepreneurs,” said PM Modi, while interacting with the entrepreneurs through NaMo App.
The Indian PM, while listening to start-ups founders’ innovation stories, also said start-ups can sell their products to the government and in recent times, the government has significantly eased public procurement norms for them.
Citing that the number of trademark filing forms has been reduced from 75 to just eight, PM Modi said a number of processes have been eased for start-ups.
He said that a subsidy of 10 per cent is now extended to start-ups filing for trademarks. Similarly, over 50 per cent of the patent cost is borne by the government. “We have registered a three-fold increment in the number of patent registrations recently,” said the Indian PM, adding, there was a time when start-ups meant only digital and technology innovation, but now things are changing and the country is seeing start-ups in various other fields, including agriculture.
