Amit Shah urges industries to back startups, says country is adding unicorns fast

Union Home & Cooperation Minister Amit Shah on Thursday urged industries to fully back startups in view of the linkage they have with the industry.

Startups have come a long way since 2014 when the country had just one unicorn. “Today with over 100 unicorn start-ups, the youth of India are representing the country on the global stage,” Shah said at the third edition of 'Sankalp Se Siddhi' conference in Bengaluru, organised jointly by the Ministry of Culture and CII.

A slew of reform initiatives has placed India at the 43 ^rd position in the global competitiveness index from 71 ^st in 2014-15, he said.

Between 2014 and 2021, FDI worth $440 billion came into India, the Union Home Minister said. “We have become the world's 7th favourite destination for investment. We were at number 142 in the Ease of Doing Business rankings in 2014, today we are at number 63.”

FOCUS ON R&D:
Shah urged the industries to prioritise R&D efforts to build their scale. "India's industry should not think about increasing its speed but about changing its scale and if scale is to be changed, then the thrust has to be given to R&D.”

India’s youth are the best brains for R&D and CII should make efforts to do R&D in India, he said, calling for efforts to see that nothing in the production chain from raw materials to finished goods is made outside India.

"CII should identify things. This should be done by industry now and that can only happen when CII becomes a platform instead of just representing issues. CII should come up with some concrete proposals to solve problems,” he said.

"We need to move forward by paying special attention to defense, energy, and how to be a cost-friendly industry and manufacturing hub.”