In a move that can help start-ups deal with funding constraints, Commerce & Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said that senior officials from the Industry Department will discuss with RBI, banks and venture capital funds to help them get funding.

She also hinted that the forthcoming Union Budget may have tax announcements for start-ups. “Tax benefits for start-ups can only be announced in Budget,” Sitharaman said at an event to mark the first anniversary of the government’s `Start-Up India’ programme on Monday.

The Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion (DIPP) has written to 100 CEOs in the country to help start-ups as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) obligation, DIPP Secretary Ramesh Abhishek said.

He added that as many as ten States have agreed to relax labour laws and environment laws for start-ups to ensure an easier regulatory regime.

Of the 1,368 applications received by DIPP since the start-up policy was operationalised last year, 502 have the required documents and have been recognised as start-ups. These will be eligible for benefits such as exemption from various compliances, help to file IPR applications and some relaxation in norms of government procurement reserved for small enterprises.

However, just 111 applications met the criteria of having been set up after April 1, 2016 and could be considered for tax benefits. Of these, only 8 start-ups actually qualified for tax benefits.

If the forthcoming Union Budget relaxes the criteria for qualification, the number of start-ups benefiting from the three-year income-tax exemption offered by the government could increase several-fold.