Rajasthan, the western state of India, known for its handicrafts and royal forts now wants to be known for startups as the state government is expected to announce its first ever Startup Policy under which it plans to support about 500 startups by 2020 in the state.
Under its startup policy, which is expected to be announced next week, the state govt. has already allocated Rs 55 crore for the coming five years, reported The Times of India.
Veenu Gupta, Principal Secretary, Industries at Government of Rajasthan says, We plan to bring investments of up to Rs 500 crore in next five years and help set up at least 500 startups in the state, with the help of India’s leading venture capital firms, accelerators and tech companies
The state will invest about Rs 11 crore each year in promising startups.
Veenu Gupta, who is also the Managing Director for Rajasthan Industrial development and Investment Corporation (RIICO) says that the government will provide an assistance of Rs 10 lakh per startup in the form of equity or loan.
Screening of startups will be done by partner organisations such as reputed IIM-Ahmedabad’s Centre for Innovation, Incubation & Entrepreneurship (CIIE).
Additionally, the state is also planning to set-up about 50 startup incubators in the coming five years and it intends to take help of partner organisations like Rajasthan Venture Capital Fund, IIM-A’s CIIE, Rajasthan Angel Investors Network (RAIN) and Chennai-based Impact investment firm Villgro.
Notably, Rajasthan is also organizing it’s biggest startup fest on 9th and 10 of October 2015.
With the Startup Policy 2015, Rajasthan will soon become the first amongst India’s northern states to come out with a policy dedicated to tech startups. So far only four states have dedicated policy for tech-based startups, these are Karnataka, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala, and now Rajasthan would be the next.