Draft startup policy unveiled in Chandigarh

Tribune News Service

Dushyant Singh Pundir

Chandigarh, September 3

To encourage startups, the UT Administration has finally unveiled its Draft Startup Policy. It will set up a dedicated startup fund for the city ecosystem.

The primary objective of the fund would be to promote incubation centres, seed and scale-up funding for startups and other fiscal support to such units.

To plug the gap for early-stage startup financing in the UT, the administration will set up a seed fund. This will be a grant-in-aid-based seed fund with an initial corpus of Rs 10 crore and a total corpus of Rs 50 crore over a period of five years.

The Administration will facilitate various initiatives to make the startup ecosystem inclusive for women entrepreneurs. For purposes of the incentives, a woman-led startup will be defined as a startup with a woman as founder, co-founder or CXO. A minimum of 33% of the seed fund interest-free loans proposed in this policy will be dedicated to women-led startups.

Incubation support

The administration will partner with higher education institutions (HEIs) to set up state-of-the-art incubators or upgrade the existing ones. The UT will encourage incubators which identify industries to be promoted, considering the strengths and limitations of the city. These incubators will be encouraged to partner with leading corporate organisations to run annual incubator challenges for local innovators and startups.

Co-working spaces

The Administration will encourage co-working facilities offering seats on rent for startups and innovators on a pay-per use basis. The startups would be able to access facilities such as high-speed Internet, power backup secured access, 24x7 security with CCTV surveillance, etc. Registered startups will be eligible to receive access to co-working spaces free of cost or at subsidised rental rates for a period of three years or a limited period.

The administration, in collaboration with the HEIs, will host ‘startup workshops’ from time to time featuring entrepreneurship boot camps and pitching sessions for aspiring entrepreneurs to pitch their ideas to leading incubators and investors.

Apart from financial support, the administration will encourage capacity building for incubators in the network. This will be done through regular training sessions for incubator managers and employees along with support for exposure visits to leading incubation facilities in India and abroad for knowledge exchange on best practices. The administration will partner with relevant ecosystem players for conducting exchange programmes for high-potential startups.

The Administration will provide commercialisation support to market-ready knowledge and research breakthroughs residing in government research laboratories, institutions, and individual innovators.

Mentorship

The administration will empanel a number of startup mentors with expertise in domains such as fund raising, scaling, recruitment and product interface, business model development, funding strategies, company registration, accounting and taxation, legal and digital marketing. These mentors will also provide support to aspiring entrepreneurs especially students through organisation of ideation workshops.

Academic interventions

The UT will focus on bringing about a targeted transformation in the education system, by ensuring that certain skills (such as Do-it Yourself, coding, interface design, etc) can be imparted to students studying at primary and secondary school levels.

Entrepreneurship cells

The UT will encourage the establishment of Entrepreneurship Cells (E-Cells) in all colleges as student-driven initiatives at the college levels. E-Cells will conduct startup and innovation festivals, showcase local success stories, engage alumni, host leadership talks and develop women entrepreneurship ecosystem.

Relaxed norms for procurement

There will be easier norms for procurement by public entities from startups, including exempting startups from the criteria of prior turnover and prior experience, without any relaxation in technical specifications or quality standards.

Annual student startup festival

Startup fests for showcasing innovation and providing a collaboration platform for launching innovation programmes for students will be organised. Successful entrepreneurs from leading educational institutions, corporates, venture capital firms, etc, will be invited to support innovations.

Workshops

• UT to partner with higher education institutions to set up modern incubators.
• Co-working facilities offering seats on rent for startups and innovators.
• ‘Startup workshops’ for aspiring entrepreneurs to pitch their ideas to leading incubators and investors.
• Admn to partner with ecosystem players for conducting exchange programmes.
• Startup mentors with expertise in various domains to be empanelled.

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