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The Uttar Pradesh government has tied up with the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Lucknow to promote start-ups and groom entrepreneurial skills among rural youth.
The state, in collaboration with IIM-Lucknow, will set up an incubation centre to provide seed capital and nurture fresh business ideas among rural youth.
“We have started a programme to promote rural start-ups in collaboration with the IIM-Lucknow. The institute has been asked to prepare a formal proposal for signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to this effect,” Navneet Sehgal, additional chief secretary, sports and youth welfare of UP, told Business Standard.
Sehgal said the programme was meant to support start-up ideas coming from rural UP in different sectors. “The state IT & electronics department has agreed to finance start-up ventures incubated by the proposed incubation centre,” he added.
Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Technical University (AKTU), Lucknow, will also support this rural start-up ecosystem initiative.
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As part of the programme, the youth welfare department has shortlisted about 150 people to showcase their start-up ideas for incubation and funding aid. The department plans to launch a mobile application ‘Yuva Sathi’ as a single-window platform offering multiple career and employment related services anchored by the state government.
The state has a vibrant start-up ecosystem with Noida, Ghaziabad, and Lucknow accounting for a dominant share of ventures. Prominent UP-based unicorns include Paytm and Pine Labs.
The Yogi Adityanath government has amended the start-up policy to expand incentives to enrich the ‘doing business climate’ for new business ideas.
At the same time, the government increased the targeted number of start-up centres of excellence (CoE) from three to eight.
Currently, UP is home to about 52 government-recognised incubators with more than 7,200 start-ups registered with the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIP).
To further boost start-up infra, the state has formed an angel fund with the target of setting up 10,000 start-ups. The government has been allocating huge funds to strengthen the start-up support mechanism and promote self-employment among the youth.
So far, two CoEs have been established at the Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGIMS), Lucknow and at the Noida campus of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur. Another CoE dedicated to drones is proposed at IIT Kanpur.
