Startup mission looks beyond IITs, IIMs

HRD Ministry, DST to join hands to set up over 75 startup support hubs.

The Start-Up India mission to be unveiled on Saturday by Prime Minister Narendra Modi includes an ambitious plan to create a network of startup centres, technology business incubators and research parks, to take the startup culture beyond the top-tier education institutions such as IITs and IIMs.

The Human Resource Development Ministry and the Department of Science and Technology have agreed to partner in an initiative to set up over 75 such startup support hubs in the National Institutes of Technology (NITs), the Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs), the Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISERs) and NIPERs or National Institutes of Pharmaceutical Education and Research.

“From about 70 incubators set up by the government between 2001 and 2014, we have now crossed 100 incubators. About 90 of these are in educational institutions, with virtually all the old IITs and IIMs covered,” said Harkesh Mittal, adviser and head of the National Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board.

Steady climb “The number of IIT/IIM graduates looking to start their own ventures has gone from two per cent a few years ago to nearly 10 per cent now, but we need to take this movement to our other educational institutions as well,” Mr. Mittal told The Hindu .

As per the plan, the HRD Ministry and the Science and Technology Ministry would share the costs for setting up startup centres in these institutions, which would need around 5,000 square feet space and cost around Rs. 50 lakh a year.

Startup mission envisages incubators, parks

The Start Up India mission to be unveiled on Saturday envisages technology business incubators and research parks. The Science and Technology Ministry would bear 100 per cent cost to set up business incubators in institutes like NITs. Each incubator would work with 20 budding ventures, and be spread over 10,000 sq.ft. The cost of each incubator is expected to be in the range of Rs. 5 crore to Rs. 10 crore.

Separately, research parks like the one at IIT Madras would be set up in a handful of institutes at a cost of Rs. 70 crore to Rs. 100 crore each. They would be fully funded by the HRD Ministry. A technology business incubator would be built into these parks that have at least 1,00,000 sq. ft. of space for operations.

“Wherever there are youth, they will be linked through ‘live connectivity’,” Prime Minister Modi had said on December 27.

In top gear

• * With 4,200 startups, India ranks 3rd globally.
• * Of $18 billion pumped into Indian startups between 2010-15, $9 billion came in 2015 alone.
• * 9 Indian startups have been valued at more than a billion dollars.
• * Increase in number of incubators: 80 in 2014, 110 in 2015; 50% outside Delhi, Bengaluru, Mumbai.