2.85 lakh jobs created by 23,657 DPIIT recognised startups: Piyush Goyal

In a written reply to the Lok Sabha, while answering questions related to the Startup India initiative of the government, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said that about 2,85,890 jobs have been created by 23,657 DPIIT recognised startups as on 4th December 2019.

Maharashtra led with 52,847 employees working in 4,443 startups followed by Karnataka, where 46,462 people are currently employed in 3,444 startups.

National capital Delhi was next with 3,001 DPIIT recognised startups absorbing 34,489 employees. In Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, there are 3,261 startups altogether with more than 39,600 people employed.

Sikkim and Daman & Diu were at the bottom with five startups employing less than 20 people, a statement released by the government revealed.

The statement also said that the ministry has provided tax exemptions to recognized startups under Section 56(2)(viib) of the Income Tax Act when any startup receives any consideration for issue of shares which exceeds the Fair Market Value of such shares.

As on 21st November 2019, the Small Industries Development Bank of India or SIDBI has committed Rs 3123.20 Cr. to 47 SEBI registered Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs).

According to the minister, these funds have raised a corpus fund of Rs. 25,728 crore. Rs. 695.94 crore has been drawn from the Fund of Funds for startups. Rs. 2,669.83 crore has been invested in 279 startups.

This development has been reported at a time when the Indian government-backed Startup India Initiative has missed disbursal of the targeted outlay despite its promise to speed up the funding disbursal process by leveraging new technology.

The Startup India initiative, which was set up to help startups get funding in early-stage, has released just Rs 700 crore of its Rs 10,000 crore corpus since its inception three years ago.

There are 25,115 recognised startups in India, while the data on the number of successful startups is not centrally compiled. The government is planning to take the number to 50,000 in the next five years.