According to an article by The Guardian in 2018, more than 50% of the population of India is below 25 years of age. With one of the largest cohorts of youth, their growing demand for quality education and employment has put the state in worry as job creations have not kept pace with their growing demand. Both the public as well as private sector can feel this brunt as hundreds and thousands of candidates apply for a small number of openings or vacancies, leading to a rise in competition to get the job. Although the youth of today is heavily aided by online learning portals such as Testbook, Vedantu, BYJU’s, Unacademy and so on, the competition just doesn’t seem to lighten.
The Government of India has realised that the only way to solve this problem is by encouraging the growth of entrepreneurship and opening of new businesses, which can cater to the employment needs of a large number of eligible youngsters. And keeping this in mind, the state has launched multiple programmes and schemes in the recent past to encourage young individuals to develop entrepreneurship skills along with creating an environment of innovation.
Given below are some of the schemes launched by the Government of India to boost the growth and number of young startups in urban as well as in rural areas.
Atal Innovation Mission
Launched as a flagship initiative by the NITI Aayog in 2015 and named after our former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Atal Innovation Mission focuses on encouraging entrepreneurship and innovation among youth all over india. The policy works parallely with the central and state governments in order to formulate streamlined policies on innovation that align with building and promoting an ecosystem for entrepreneuring growth and incentivising innovation at various levels of education such as high secondary school, institutions of higher education, MSMEs, NGOs and more.
This programme provides a platform to academic students to participate in research work and innovation, along with gaining experience to become a successful entrepreneur. The initial allocation by the Government of India for Atal Innovation Mission was Rs 150 crores.
Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana
The scheme was launched on April 8, 2015, by PM Modi to offer loans to small scale or micro enterprises. The loans are offered through regional rural banks, commercial and small finance banks, and NBFCs. It comprises three brackets under which loans are provided to the borrower, namely: Shishu (upto Rs 50,000), Kishore (upto Rs 5 lakhs) and Tarun (upto Rs 10 lakhs). This is to designate the ongoing stage of development of the enterprise and the financial needs of the entrepreneur. Through this scheme, any young student or entrepreneur can approach the above mentioned intuitions or apply for a loan online.
Aspire
A Scheme for Promotion of Innovation, Rural industries and Entrepreneurship, or ASPIRE, was launched in the year 2015 by the Ministry of MSME in order to build a network of technology and incubation centres to speed up entrepreneurship along with the promotion of innovation and facilitating setting up of more startups in the agro-based industries.
One major objective of this programme is to reduce unemployment by creating new jobs for young graduates, strengthening the culture of entrepreneurship across India and promotion of innovation and competition in MSMEs. It achieves these objectives by implementation of commercial ideas forwarded by research institutes in the field of agro industry.
Startup India Scheme
Under this initiative, eligible companies can apply to be recognised as startups by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade. Through this, they can receive tax benefits and other additional perks such as easier norms for public procurement, speedy IPR, patent process and more. Launched in 2015, Startup India is based on the idea to increase employment and wealth by encouraging young entrepreneurs to take a step forward to keep their entrepreneurial spirit alive.
Startups aged less than 10 years from the date of incorporation and in any way working in the direction of development of products or services, with the potential of generating jobs and wealth, can apply under this scheme to avail the abovementioned benefits.
Ebiz Programme
A government-to-business electronic portal developed by Infosys Technologies Limited, the scheme has been developed in a private-public partnership with the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. This online portal will improve the accessibility of the government-to-business services and minimise delays caused during regulatory processes that are mandatory for incorporation and running of a business.
The Ebiz portal will act as a one-stop gateway for availing services as well as allowing transaction of payments. This portal will play a key role in improving the ease of doing business in India, which could be very beneficial for the youth thinking about starting a business.
Support for International Patent protection in Electronics and Information Technology (SIP-EIT)
Most of the emerging startups in India are facing a major crisis nationally and globally when it comes to protecting their intellectual property because of the high cost pertaining to the patent filing process and intellectual property rights protection. This is the reason why only a few Indian companies are able to compete at global level, as it is not possible for a small company to be able to afford the cost involved in international patent filing. Even though IPR filing at the national level has increased in rate, very few small and medium enterprises from Information and Communication Technology in Education are able to apply for it.
Likewise, at the international level, the number of application filing from Indian companies are very less as compared to those from other major countries. In order to mitigate this problem, the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) initiated the SIP-EIT scheme to help startups as well as MSMEs in Electronics and Information technology by offering them financial support for protecting their innovations and bolstering their competitiveness. It provides reimbursement of upto Rs 15 lakhs for every invention or half of the expenses incurred during the patent filing process.