NITI Aayog to discuss ways to promote innovation

The overarching purpose of this mission is to promote a culture of entrepreneurship and innovation in the country

Ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Start-up India Policy, a first-of-its-kind start-up event has been organised by the government on Friday in which about 200 budding entrepreneurs from all over the country would be taking part.

According to officials, this is the first time the government is organising an event where consolidated efforts would be made to help start-ups from every possible sector.

The NITI Aayog would also be presenting the findings of the report of Expert Committee on Innovation and Entrepreneurship headed by noted academician Tarun Khanna.

Sindhushree Khullar, CEO, NITI Aayog; Arvind Panagariya, vice-chairman, NITI Aayog, and Tarun Khanna along with officials from the department of MSME, biotechnology and members of expert committee would be part of the event.

“We would be discussing the grand challenges which start-ups in India are facing as of now.

"The 200-odd start-ups taking part will have the opportunity to speak to the government officials as well as a number of venture capitalists and angel investors.

"Also, a set of recommendations would be drawn from these discussions and presented to the government to be later incorporated in the final start-up policy that the Prime Minister is working on,” said a senior government official.

A number of recommendations have been given by various government agencies as well as private players to formulate the upcoming start-up policy.

The Tarun Khanna Committee recommendations have been divided into three different parts.

“They have been divided into short-, medium- and long-term goals.

"While the short-term goals include utilisation of Atal Innovation Fund, to encouraging and attaching a number of start-up incubators to the mission, long-term goal of the government should be attach entrepreneurship to large-scale economic and social programmes,” added the official.

The committee has also recommended that efforts should be made to improve ease of doing business through a series of measures which include digitisation of government permits, creation of a central ID for enterprises, revisiting the Companies Act to distinguish between closely held private companies, public companies, and publicly-listed companies.

“Moving service tax back to actuals rather than accruals, improving access to capital, labour market reforms, creation of an online nationwide real estate registry are also part of the recommendations given by the committee,” added the official.