Why in news ?

Minister for Electronics and Information Technology Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad today launched Chunauti Next Generation Start-up Challenge Contest.

About Chunauti Next Generation Start-up Challenge

• To further boost startups and software products with special focus on Tier-II towns of India.
• The government has earmarked a budget of Rs. 95.03 Crore over a period of three years for this programme.
• It aims to identify around 300 startups working in identified areas.
• Besides provide them seed fund of upto Rs. 25 Lakh and other facilities.
• The startups selected through Chunauti will be provided various support from the Government through Software Technology Parks of India centers across India.
• They will get incubation facilities, mentorship, security testing facilities, access to venture capitalist funding, industry connect as well as advisories in legal, Human Resource (HR), IPR and Patent matters.
• The major focus on 
  • Education, Agriculture, Finance technologies
  • Supply chain
  • Infrastructure & Remote monitoring
  • Medical Healthcare
  • Jobs & Skilling

Challenges for Start Up in India

• Many Indian founders have a technical background and lack business knowledge.
• Significant amount of working capital is required that means finding the right investor and raising funds is difficult.
• Diversity in language leads to communication gap with customers and start up cannot understand the need of customers.
• competitive for marketing :Many firms are already present and many more enter the market including the duplicate products market with less price.
• Selection of an employee is difficult as they are not willing to join a start up firm as a career option. 
• India ranking in Ease of doing business at 77 out of 190 but country is 137th of 190 countries in the World Bank Starting a Business Ranking index. This shows the difficulty in starting a business. 

Indian start up sector is at the early stage of the development. It is important to increase the ease of starting a business for self reliant India. The proposals like Chunauti Next Generation Start-up Challenge will boost the ecosystem.

Source : PIB

Topic

Prelims : About Chunauti Next Generation Start-up Challenge

GS III : Effects of liberalization on the economy, changes in industrial policy and their effects on industrial growth

(ii) Awareness in the fields of IT, Space, Computers, robotics, nano-technology, bio-technology and issues relating to intellectual property rights

Current Affairs Compilation : 29 August 2020