Prime Minister Narendra Modi expresses happiness over the exponential rise in the indicators of innovation. He said that in the year 2013-14, 4000 patents were approved, last year, more than 28 thousand patents were granted. In the year 2013-14, where about 70000 trademarks were registered, in 2020-21 more than 2.5 lakh trademarks have been registered.
Interacting with Startups today via video conferencing, he said that in the year 2013-14, where only 4000 copyrights were granted, last year their number has crossed 16000. 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 81 rank but now India stands at 46 rank in the index.
He said that the organization of this Start Up India Innovation week is all the more important in this year of Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav as the role of the Start Ups will be critical when Indian freedom reaches its centenary year.
“I congratulate all the start-ups of the country, all the innovative youth, who are raising the flag of India in the world of start-ups. For this culture of start-ups to reach the far-flung parts of the country, it has been decided to celebrate January 16 as National Start-up Day”, he added.
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 Startup India and Standup India as part of the efforts. Measures like removing problems of ‘angel tax’, simplification of tax procedure, arranging for government funding, allowing self certification of 9 labour and 3 environment laws and removal of more than 25 thousand compliances have taken the process further. Startup runway on the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) platform is facilitating the provision of startup services to the government.
The Prime Minister said the Government’s effort is to institutionalize innovation in the country by creating attraction for innovation among students since childhood. More than 9000 Atal Tinkering Labs are giving children a chance to innovate in schools and work on new ideas.
He added that whether it is new drone rules, or new space policy, the priority of the government is to provide opportunities for innovation to as many youth as possible. Our government has simplified the rules related to IPR registration too, he added.
Modi informed that startups of India are working with 55 separate industries and the number of startups has increased from less than 500 five years ago to more than 60 thousand today. The Prime Minister said “Our Start-ups are changing the rules of the game. That’s why I believe Start-ups are going to be the backbone of new India.”
The Prime Minister noted that last year, 42 unicorns came up in the country. These companies worth thousands of crores of rupees are the hallmark of self-reliant and self-confident India. “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”, he added.
The Prime Minister underlined the role of empowerment by entrepreneurship in addressing the problems of development and regional-gender disparities. He mentioned that today, there is at least one startup in each of the 625 districts of the country and more than half of the startups are from tier 2 and tier 3 cities. These are converting ideas from ordinary poor families into businesses and lakhs of young Indians are getting employment.
