It’s been nearly 20 months since Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled a slew of incentives to boost ‘Start-up’ businesses. (PTI photo)
It’s been nearly 20 months since Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled a slew of incentives to boost ‘Start-up’ businesses, offering them a tax holiday and inspector raj-free regime for three years and capital gains tax exemption. But, it seems start-up funding is crawling! Here is how. The Narendra Modi government’s Rs 10,000 crore Fund-of-Funds for start-ups (FFS) was floated in January 2016. It was launched in line with the Start-up India Action Plan of the Modi Government. According to a report in The Indian Express, it has made a slow progress with only about Rs 70 crore having been disbursed to start-ups until September 10.
According to official DIPP data updated till March 31, 2017, under the scheme, an amount of about Rs 600 crore was released by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) to SIDBI, which, in turn, has committed Rs 623.5 crore in 17 Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs). Of this, an amount of just Rs 33.63 crore had been disbursed to 62 start-ups until end-March.
“Till September 10, the drawal made by funds had gone up to Rs 69.5 crore, ” a senior SIDBI official said in response to queries sent by The Indian Express on the status of the FFS.
However, DIPP officials said they expect the disbursements to pick up in coming months as guidelines have been revised, according to the IE report.
Reportedly, an amount of Rs 500 crore was provided to the corpus of Fund-of-Funds for start-ups (FFS) in the year 2015-16. Rs 600 crore was earmarked in the 2016-17.
The Fund is expected to generate employment for 18 lakh persons on full deployment.
