UP cabinet clears Startup Policy 2020, targets 10,000 new ventures

Recently, UP had created a Rs 1,000 crore Startup Fund managed by Sidbi

Targetting to break into India’s top three start-up-congenial states, the Uttar Pradesh cabinet has cleared the UP Startup Policy 2020 to nurture fresh business ideas.

The state cabinet meeting chaired by chief minister Yogi Adityanath last evening put its seal of approval to the policy, which also aims at setting up 100 incubators covering all the 75 districts in UP. It is expected to generate 150,000 employment and self employment opportunities, including 50,000 direct jobs.

This comes less than 50 days after chief minister Yogi Adityanath had on May 20 launched the UP Startup Fund to be managed by the Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI). The Fund was set up under the UP Information Technology and Start-up Policy 2017.

Meanwhile, the new Startup Policy, which will be applicable for five years from date of notification, will help in the corporatisation of more than 10,000 startups, fostering an enabling ecosystem, setting up of state-of-art centres of excellence, apart from instituting the country’s largest incubation hub in Lucknow.

The Centre periodically ranks states in terms of various parameters to ascertain their progress in terms of promoting the startup culture. Armed with the new policy, the state aims at ranking among the top three states in the coming years. In 2018, the Centre had anointed UP as ‘Inspiring Leader’ in the national startup rankings.

So far, the startups were governed under the UP Information Technology and Start-up Policy 2017, which was primarily focussed to the IT sector. Nonetheless, more than 1,800 startup ventures were registered with the different central government departments following the pro-business stance taken by the state.

Apart from the Rs 1,000 crore ‘Startup Fund’ created with the help of SIDBI, a UP Angel Network was also created to handhold corporate greenhorns and an online system was developed for their benefit.

Since the existing startup framework did not cater other sectors, the state was already in the process of hammering out a comprehensive policy to address this lacunae. Now, UP Startup Policy 2020 will accord equal importance to startups in the varied fields of agriculture, medical and health, energy, Khadi, education, tourism, transport etc.

The officials involved in drafting the new policy had also studied similar policies in other states and took suggestions from experts to evolve a composite policy framework for UP, according to the government statement here. The policy will give special emphasis to such startup ventures in the backward regions of Purvanchal and Bundelkhand regions with additional financial and incubation support.

Amid the massive influx of more than 3.5 million migrant labourers from other states following Covid-19 lockdown, the Adityanath government is looking to harness their skills by providing them jobs suited to their profiles and promoting the self employment opportunities in different sectors and areas.