PM to Start-ups: Don’t just keep your dreams local, make them global

New Delhi, January 15

Prime Minister Narendra Modi while addressing Start-UPs across the country via video conferencing, in New Delhi, Saturday, Jan. 15, 2022. - PTI Photo | Photo Credit: -

With his commitment of standing with them, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday encouraged Start-ups to dream global. He also announced to celebrate January 16 as National Start-up Day to take the Start-up culture to the far-flung areas of the country.

During his interactions with Start-ups on Saturday, Modi said start-ups from India can easily reach other countries as well. So “don’t just keep your dreams local, make them global. Remember this mantra- let’s Innovate for India, innovate from India,” he exhorted the innovators.

Potential areas

The Prime Minister suggested m any areas where the start-up ecosystem can play a major role. He said that extra space on the PM GatiShakti National Master Plan can be used for EV charging infrastructure. Similarly, areas like defence manufacturing, chip manufacturing offer many possibilities. He dwelled on the drone sector and said that many investors have been investing in drone startups after the new drone policy. Army, Navy and Air Force have given ₹500-crore worth orders to drone startups. In urban planning, the Prime Minister touched upon ‘walk to work concepts’, integrated industrial estates and smart mobility as potential areas.

Referring to the future prospects, the Prime Minister said that as of now only half of our population is online, therefore future possibilities are immense and he appealed to the start- ups to move towards villages also. “Whether it is mobile internet, broadband connectivity or physical connectivity, aspirations of villages are rising and rural and semi-urban areas are waiting for a new wave of expansion”, he said.

TECHADE of India

Recalling the concept of the current decade as the ‘TECHADE’ of India, the Prime Minister listed three important aspects of the massive changes that the government is making in this decade to strengthen the innovation, entrepreneurship and start-up ecosystem. First, to liberate entrepreneurship and innovation from the web of government processes, bureaucratic silos. Second, creating an institutional mechanism to promote innovation. And third, handholding of young innovators and young enterprises. He listed programmes like Start-up India and Stand-up India as part of the efforts.

Start-ups are working with 55 separate industries and the number of Startups has increased from less than 500 five years ago to more than 60,000 today. There is at least one start-up in each of the 625 districts of the country and more than half of the start-ups are from tier 2 and tier 3 cities. Last year, India saw birth of 42 unicorns (Each one with a valuation of $1 billion or $100 crore) came up in the country. “Today India is rapidly moving towards hitting the century of the unicorns. I believe the golden era of India’s start-ups is starting now,” Modi said.

He highlighted that In the year 2013-14, 4,000 patents were approved which rose to 28,000 in 2020-21. Similarly, in the year 2013-14, where about 70,000 trademarks were registered, in 2020-21 more than 2.5 lakh trademarks have been registered. Again, I=in the year 2013-14, where only 4,000 copyrights were granted, last year their number has crossed 16,000. The Prime Minister pointed out that India’s campaign for innovation has resulted in improvement of India’s ranking in Global innovation index where India stood at 81st rank but now India stands at 46th rank in the index.

COMMENT NOW