New policy to make Delhi India’s startup capital: CM Kejriwal

The state cabinet on Thursday approved the "Delhi Startup Policy”, aimed at creating an enabling ecosystem for people to launch startups and avail of a host of handholding measures such as fiscal and non-fiscal incentives, collateral-free loans, and free consultancy from experts, lawyers, and chartered accountants, among others.

The government aims to create business leaders and entrepreneurs from among the youth and make Delhi the “startup destination of the world”, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said.

The state aims to encourage, facilitate, and support 15,000 startups by 2030 and generate new avenues of employment, he added.

The government also decided to introduce entrepreneurship classes and the “business blasters” programme in colleges after the successful roll-out of these programmes in schools.

Kejriwal announced that a 20-member task force, comprising government officials and experts from business and trade, that will help startups with registration and other activities.

“This policy will lead to a wave of startups in Delhi and it will become the home of behemoth businesses and unicorns,” Kejriwal contended.

According to the policy framework, the plan is to create the ecosystem for an innovation-based economy, and to foster entrepreneurial spirit through a robust support mechanism.

“The Delhi government will provide both fiscal and non-fiscal incentives to the youth. For instance, the government will pay up to 50% of the rental cost of a startup office. We will also pitch in to pay a portion of employee salaries. We will further reimburse their patent, copyright and trademarking costs and help them with internet bills and other overheads. We will also offer collateral free loans, interest free loans and incentivise incubation centres and fabrication labs,” Kejriwal said.

According to a statement from the Delhi government, the fiscal incentives for startups include reimbursement on lease rentals -- 50% or up to ₹5 lakh per annum; reimbursement grants for filing patent up to ₹1 lakh per annum (Indian) and up to ₹3 lakh per annum (international); reimbursement for exhibition stall/rental cost -- 100% for women/ underprivileged/ differently abled persons and 50% for others up to ₹5 lakh per annum; monthly allowance towards operational/ employee cost of up to ₹30,000 per month for one year; financial grants towards capital and operational expenditures in the establishment; and financial support for procurement of key software up to 50% of the total cost.

The policy is linked to the Delhi Budget 2022-23, which focuses on generating two million jobs by 2027 through various interventions and by promoting businesses.

The CM also announced that official formalities for startups will be kept to a minimum.

“When a youth wants to build a business, they give 10% time to their business and 90% to paperwork and official formalities. We will overcome this problem by empanelling agencies and professionals to aid these startups for free. There will be panels of lawyers, experts, CAs and other such professionals who will provide free of cost services to the startups and all of them will be paid by the Delhi government. Our teams will help startups in marketing, developing their social media, taking their services to the market, investor approach, taxation, filing, loan work and the like,” Kejriwal said.

The Delhi government will also offer leave to students of Delhi government-run institutes. “If there is any student in a Delhi government institute who develops a product or a startup they want to focus on, we will offer them a two-year leave to work on it. The student can develop their business and return to get their degree,” Kejriwal said.

The BJP alleged that none of the state’s policies had “concrete results.”

“The government has made tall promises under the startup policy, it must ensure that the announcements made are fulfilled. Since coming to power, the AAP government has announced various policies and plans, but not a single policy had concrete results because after hogging headlines, the government forgets the policies. The AAP government announced several plans to fight pollution, but nothing has changed on ground and Delhi is witnessing high pollution levels even in summer,” said Delhi BJP spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor.