START UP POLICY

One of the reasons for under-development of India is technological backwardness. In order to encourage innovative ventures, the government of India had launched a comprehensive start-up policy in February, 2016. The success of start-ups will not only promote industrialization but will also generate a lot of employment in the country. The government has adopted a systematic approach to promote innovative ventures working towards commercialization of new products. Besides the central government, various state governments have also launched their own start-up policies to promote young entrepreneurs. Educational institutes, especially those imparting technical and professional education have also been involved by providing funds for creating incubation centers and research parks so as to encourage students develop an entrepreneurial acumen. India is now the world’s third largest technology startup hub. Around 1,000 new start-up companies were incorporated in 2017 alone. The current paper aims at reviewing and evaluating the start-up policy of the government. The paper is divided into three parts. The first part describes the meaning and characteristics of start-ups. This relates to the technical definition of start-ups in India. The second section illustrates various measures taken by the government under the start-up policy to encourage the new innovative ventures. This basically includes various benefits and incentives given by the government to the start-ups. The final section evaluates the performance of start-up policy. This section examines how far the start-up policy has been effective and what have been its main short-comings.