Indore: India’s start-up culture lags far behind Germany, Israel; Says Dr Chintan Vaishnav, Mission Director, NITI Aayog

Indore (Madhya Pradesh): In India, where population has reached a massive 140 crore, the situation of start-ups is gradually improving. Around 1.40 lakh start-ups are registered in Atal Innovation Mission. As compared to the population of the country, there is one start-up per ten thousand people, which is very less compared to countries like Israel or Germany.

In these countries, there is one start-up per one or two thousand people. In these countries work is being done on ideas related to hardware manufacturing while only one per cent idea is being worked on in hardware manufacturing in India.

It will take ten more years for the country to reach there, Dr Chintan Vaishnav, Mission Director, Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog said. He was the chief guest at AIC Pi-Hub Day function organised at Convention Centre, RRCAT on Wednesday for its first anniversary celebration.

Dr V Narayanan, Director, Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre (LPSC), ISRO and Dr SV Nakhe, former director, RRCAT were the guests of honour. Vaishnav said that the country has to move ahead in the manufacturing sector. Only then will it be able to make a place in the list of developed countries.

For this, more attention is being paid to hardware manufacturing start-ups, because Indian equipment is needed in agriculture, health, irrigation and environment sector. However, there is a lot of skill in software in India. Due to this, more start-ups are coming up in this sector. He said that more than 100 incubation centres are to be built across the country.

These days, funding is being arranged for business ideas from different institutions. However, the government gives grants to 50 per cent of the start-ups.

In the programme, RRCAT Director and AIC Pi-Hub Chairman UD Malshe informed the guests about activities of the hub on completion of a year. Five technology transfers and nine incubation agreements have been made during the period.