Yogi govt to develop India's biggest startup incubator in Lucknow

UP had allocated Rs 10 billion budget for start-up ecosystems

After netting Rs 4.68 trillion worth of investment commitments from private and public sector companies at the UP Investors Summit 2018, the Yogi Adityanath government is now looking to set up India’s largest Startup Incubator in Lucknow.

Uttar Pradesh minister of state for IT and electronics Mohsin Raza said the proposed facility would provide an ecosystem to help entrepreneurs realise their innovative business ideas through funding, mentoring and marketing support.

Raza said the government had accorded priority to start-ups for spurring economic activity and job creation. He was addressing the UP Startup Conclave organised jointly by Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow (IIM-L) and Lucknow Management Association (LMA) on Saturday. He claimed of the 4,750 start-ups currently operating in India, almost 1,000 enterprises are based out of UP's Noida-Greater Noida region. Apart from the mega incubator in Lucknow, the state plans to develop IT Parks in Agra, Meerut, Kanpur, Gorakhpur, Varanasi, Bareilly etc.

The Startup Incubator would be set up in collaboration with a reputed educational and research institution, state additional chief secretary (IT and electronic) Alok Sinha told Business Standard. He said that budget was not a constraint and the government was already scouting for the right partner. Earlier, the state had announced a corpus of Rs 10 billion to promote start-ups and create an ecosystem comprising incubators, mentors and investors.

The government would also tie up with reputed UP-based institutions, including IIM-L, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (IIT-K), Banaras Hindu University (BHU) etc as knowledge partners for the project.

Meanwhile, the government has exhorted entrepreneurs to boost the large agro-based economy of UP. Sinha announced the state was willing to tweak its start-up policy to promote new business enterprises based on the stakeholders’ feedback and latest developments.

“While the NCR region has witnessed a significant growth in the startup space, the government wants to replicate the success in the hinterland as well,” he said, adding that the government would extend support to entrepreneurs for networking, financing and marketing of ideas.

Earlier, the state had identified about 40 acres of land near the Lucknow Airport for the proposed start-up incubator, which was to comprise a data centre, a business processes outsourcing (BPO) hub, development centres, training centres etc. Software Technology Parks of India (STPI), a central government agency, was to invest Rs 200 million for the main complex of the start-up hub spread over 2 acres.

At the UP Investors Summit on 21-22 February, the state government had received 11 investment proposals worth almost Rs 130 billion for setting up new ventures.

Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) had launched a financial technology incubator at IIM-L called ‘SIDBI Centre for Innovations in Financial Inclusion’ (SCI-FI) last year. A similar incubator at IIT-K today ranks among the top performing start-up facilities in India.