Why it happens that red-tapism is still there in our government structure even after 70 years. “Red tape is an idiom that refers to excessive regulation or rigid conformity to formal rules that is considered redundant or bureaucratic and hinders or prevents action or decision-making. It is usually applied to governments, corporations, and other large organizations.
Recently, we interacted with some startups of Rajasthan and got to know another story of red tapism that impacted the future entrepreneurs of the country and intelligent minds working with them. The five star facilities were given to them just before the elections and now all the support has been taken back, their testomonials were used for the marketing of government initiatives and during the startups exhibitions in front of media, but all go in vain during the most required time.
Here we got the story about what has happened
BJP led Government of rajasthan has created a startup policy in 2015, which implies and states a 500 Crore fund for the startups in the state, along with that 50 Incubation centres to open in state to provide co working facilities, nodal agency for the same was appointed was RIICO.
IN 2017, GOR appointed Dept of IT, GOR making it the nodal agency for startups in state. On 18th August 2017 iStart an initiative by Dept of IT was started, which provides co-working & incubation support to the startups.
This marked the opening of Incubation centres in State from Dec 2017 onwards, the Elections were approaching in Dec 2018, so bjp led govt speed up the process for startups and provided the startups and launched India’s largest business incubator — the Bhamashah Techno Hub — in Jaipur on 23rd August 2018. The incubation centre was intended to provide end-to-end support to startups, ranging from infrastructure, technology, angel funding, access to venture capitalists, mentorship, exposure to national and international organisations and experts and much more. Before the lockdown it was reported that more than 50 startups were working in the Techno Hub. With the BJP govt loose the elections in the state in dec 2018, congress govt came to power and not given much importance to the project as it was BJP government Project.
The funding support to be provided to startups is still mentioned on the official portal of iStart, but from dec 2018, Congress Government has not given the fund for the startups till now, even they are running the incubation centres, paying to In-house consultants but no financial support is provided till now.
The state’s startups were selected for financial assistance, even after six months, the money was not received –
‘Self-sufficient Rajasthan’ on the verge of closure now.
Startups, which have made the state self-sufficient through IT and innovation, have reached the brink of closure due to government apathy. The current situation is that after selected to provide financial assistance to startups in December last year, it has not received a single penny till date. These startups are working at Bhamashah TechnoHub, run by the IT department, but TechnoHub with five-star facilities now seems to be failing to provide financial support. This is the situation when Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot himself is the head (minister) of this department. In such a situation, there is a crisis on these startups, thousands of employees associated with them are also facing the crisis.
Officers do not answers – The founders of StartUps reported that six months had passed in applying for this financial aid. After this, on 19 December, during the Rajasthan Innovation and Startup Expo (Rise) event organized by the department in MNIT, they were given approval letter to provide financial support, but now no information about this from the department is available. Startups are constantly circling the department, calling, messaging and mailing, but no response.
It was supposed to get 34 startups were to get 10 thousand every month, 22 will get 1 million in equity funding, five to get 2 Million and three startups to get a seed fund of two lakh rupees. Many startups are also unable to get financial support every month. The government has decided to give 10 lakh rupees on 10 percent equity. That is, the government is also taking equity and not providing financial assistance.
Bhamashah Technohab is closed – Despite orders from the state government to open offices, Bhamashah Technohab has still not been opened.
Amid Lockdown the business is so much affected badly but still there is no support from the Government of Rajasthan for its more than 1700 registered startups.
We tried to reach to Consultants working on this project Mr. Amit Purohit & Mr. Chaahat Khatar but they were unable to answer when did this uncertainty for startups will end.
Through youth ki awaaz Entrepreneurs of Rajasthan are raising their voice to help them from this red tapism by govt infrastructure & system.
Hope some quick action will be taken into this for the future of the young talents of the state.