Budget: Delhi government to set up incubation centre to promote startup policy

New Delhi, March 26 (PTI): The Delhi government on Saturday said it will set up an “incubation centre” to promote the startup ecosystem, and also connect innovators with banks and investors for seeking funding for their new ventures.

Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Saturday presented a Rs 75,800-cr “Rozgar Budget” in the Assembly for the financial year 2022-23, and said plan is to generate 20 lakh new jobs here in the next five years through various measures.

He said “the Delhi government has made a ‘Startup’ policy and I am happy to share this information before the House that today our Delhi is the startup capital of India. Most startups have been registered here in the country”.

To further strengthen the startup ecosystem of Delhi, “we have made Delhi’s startup policy more progressive”. In our country, if a young person wants to set up a start up, then leaving his original job, he has to waste 90 per cent of his time only for getting entangled with the government for works like taxation, enforcement, GST, MCD, patent etc. Further, he has only 10 per cent time to work on his idea, said Sisodia, who also holds the finance portfolio.

“The new ‘Startup Policy’ of the Delhi government will ensure that 100 per cent of the time of the youth that is setting up a startup goes towards working on their idea and the Delhi government will take the responsibility of the formalities which counts for 90 per cent of their time spent in present scenario,” he added.

The Delhi government will set up an incubation centre, organise conferences for marketing mentoring and investment. Further, it will also “get them connected with banks and investors for finance”. There is a provision of Rs 50 crore in this year’s budget for the implementation of the new startup policy, Sisodia said.

In his address, he also spoke about the ‘Business Blaster’ programme started at Delhi schools last year with the aim of challenging class 11 and class 12 students to successfully work on their business ideas.

“Over three lakh children worked on 51,000 business ideas and today there are thousands of business ideas on which these children are working continuously. They are earning money and giving employment to others. From the next financial year, the ‘Business Blaster’ programme will be implemented with the children studying in government as well as private schools in Delhi so that they should not be job-seekers but study with the mindset of becoming job-providers,” he asserted.

“I am sure that in the years to come, these children of Delhi’s government and private schools from the very early years of their youth will be contributing significantly in meeting the country’s need of generating nine crore new jobs,” Sisodia said.