NEW DELHI: In good news for city youth who aspire to be entrepreneurs, the Delhi government has announced that it will provide them with both fiscal and non-fiscal incentives, including 50 per cent rent of office space. Moreover, the government will allow students to avail of two-year leave to work on their project or start-up.
Speaking about the Business Blasters programme of his government, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said, “If there is any student in a Delhi government institute who develops a product or a start-up they want to focus on, we will offer them a two-year leave to work on it. The student can instead develop their business and return after they leave and get their degree.”
Besides, the government will also pitch in for paying a portion of the salaries of these startups. Moreover, the government will reimburse the costs of patent, copyright and trademarking and the internet. Kejriwal said, “The bigger picture, however, is when a youth wants to build his or her business, they give 10% time to their business and 90% to paperwork and official formalities.
We will overcome this problem by empowering the agencies and professionals to aid these start-ups. There will be a panel of lawyers, experts, CAs and other such professionals who will provide free-of-cost services to the start-ups and the Delhi government in turn will pay them. Our teams will help startups in marketing, developing their social media, taking their services to the market, investor approach, taxation, filing, loan work and the like. All of this will be free.”
Through this project, Kejriwal claimed, Delhi will inch closer to becoming an international start-up hub by 2030. The Delhi cabinet approved the implementation of the start-up policy on Thursday. Bharti Singla, one of the founders of Chakr, a start-up in Delhi, who was also one of the mentors in the Business Blasters programme, said: “I believe it is a great initiative by the Delhi government to come up with such an idea where college students will benefit the most.
During my college time, I could never imagine taking a break while thinking about building a start-up side by side but now if such an incentive will be given to the students, the city will soon become an innovation hub.” She added, “I have already seen students speaking the language of business and it is a great initiative.” Delhi’s start-up policy aims to facilitate 15,000 start-ups by the year 2030.
Taskforce for start-ups
Speaking at the event, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal informed that a task force would be set up by the Delhi government to take care of the start-up policy. “This task force will consist of one government official and the rest will be academics, experts and industry representatives. 85 per cent of the people in the task force will be from the industry. People will apply to this task force and it will further consider their application for acceptance. I am sure, this ripple of a policy will lead to a wave of start-ups in Delhi. The national capital will be the home of behemoth businesses and unicorns.”