A shared working space facility will be created in Mangaluru for the benefit of start-ups which usually prefer tech capital Bengaluru which has become expensive and has limited workspaces to offer, according to Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.
She has sponsored a new co-working space for start-ups in Mangaluru from her Members of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS) fund and plans to write to all parliamentarians to help new ventures in their regions.
“As a one-off experiment, as an MP, I have taken it up in Mangaluru to have a co-workspace [shared working space] created there,” she said. “The majority of the talent from coastal Karnataka is moving towards Bengaluru, which is over-serviced and is becoming expensive for many of them to even look for a co-work space,” the Minister, who is also Rajya Sabha MP from Karnataka, said.
The facility, with a capacity of 60 seats, will be operational in a month. “Two days ago, I was in Mangaluru to inspect the space given by the municipality. I was so encouraged that all 60 seats have already been booked.”
“That is the extent to which people are expecting to catch on the start-up ecosystem,” Ms. Sitharaman said after unveiling launching a Start-up India Virtual Hub here. where budding start-ups can interact with all stakeholders, including incubators and financiers. Ms.Sitharaman will now write to all Members of Parliament to extend such assistance for start-ups in their vicinity.
“Just the Atal Innovation Mission, Human Resources Development Ministry or the department of science and technology can’t do everything for us in the start-ups space. “The PM has said every district should have a start-up to show… if not every district, MPs can at least help in areas where people approach them. The MPs should help create the environment that the PM is talking of,” she said.