Is PM Modi's Startup India Scheme Entirely a New Initiative?

 

No. Governments of some states like Kerala and West Bengal had already, before Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement, taken some concrete steps to providing entrepreneurs assistance for setting up and running business successfully. Kerala decided to invest 1% of the state’s budget (approximately INR 500 crore) in the nascent startups of the state. The  West Bengal government had tied up with IIM-Calcutta for training officials to go over each district educating and assisting all prospective entrepreneurs with everything they need to start their own ventures, with the target of 4000-5000 new entrepreneurs along with helping existing ones. The state government in collaboration with the Bengal National Chamber of Commerce & Industry also created a non-profit institute called Enterprise Development Institute for strengthening entrepreneurship with structured training and certification programmes.

Even at the central level, the Congress-led UPA government too took some steps in this regard. The Prime Minister’s Employment Generation Programme instituted by Dr. Manmohan Singh was a step in this direction, in which money was given for starting micro enterprises in the manufacturing sector and the service sector (as you can see here and here), and even earlier schemes have existed like the Prime Minister’s Rozgar Yojana, dating back to 1993. Also, while the Modi sarkar has sought to reduce the patent fee by 80% for startups, an exemption of up to 50% for them was already in existence. Thus, while this initiative may be promoted as something very new altogether, in reality, it isn’t. It may also be mentioned that back in 1993, the Indian Institute of Entrepreneurship to train budding entrepreneurs was set up near Guwahati by the then Congress government. Also, those trying to promote ease of doing business and doing away with unnecessary licensing procedures include even the AAP government in Delhi, which indeed has abrogated many unnecessary regulatory hindrances to smooth functioning of business. Interestingly, a year before Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the Startup India initiative, Dr. Kalam had talked about inculcating entrepreneurial skills through the education system and encouraging banks to be more startup-friendly.