State’s start-up ecosystem gets a major boost

Lucknow: Additional chief secretary, IT & electronics, Alok Kumar on Friday said that the growth of the MSMEs will play a major role in job creation and wealth creation.Speaking at a CII conference on electronics, software and information technology, Kumar said that currently the state has 3,800 registered start-ups and 16 incubators. “To give a thrust to the state’s start-up ecosystem, the government is targeting raising 100 incubators in the next five years,” he said.The ACS pointed out major changes that the new start-up policy offers includes inclusion of all sectors rather than just IT and electronics across Uttar Pradesh and a corpus of Rs 150 crores to nurture start-ups. He said that SIDBI is the partner for disbursements under this policy. Kumar said that Bareilly and Jhansi would also have IT parks soon apart from the existing IT parks in Lucknow, Prayagraj and Gautam Budh Nagar. Also, there is a second centre of excellence proposed in the state in Noida based on artificial intelligence, proposal for which has been received.Special secretary, IT and electronics Neha Prakash, noted that the IT start-ups are an integral part of the start-up ecosystem. She also highlighted that an entrepreneur should have the crowd fund raising module to grow their business. The pandemic has opened up a wide array of opportunities for start-ups. The latest start-up policy 2020 of the UP Government has made it easy for entrepreneurs to invest and set up their infrastructure to expand and grow their business while providing employment to the youth of the state.Nalin Kohli, chairman, CII northern regional committee on start-ups and entrepreneurship pointed out that India is the world’s third largest start-up ecosystem after the US and China. Of this, 70% of the start-ups are IT related. He pointed out that UP could be the next IT hub with its target of 1,00,000 crore worth of export in the next five years.