Kochi: At last, Kerala is getting ready to nurture entrepreneurship. The draft Kerala Technology Startup Policy offers a series of sops for the private sector to set up incubators and a number of incentives for the students to come in and start their units in them. It promotes a startup-boot-up-scale-up model for companies in which the government will offer a helping hand at each stage of growth.
The draft policy seeks a total overhaul of the educational system to instil the idea of entrepreneurship among students by making internship/ apprenticeship in the last year of the course mandatory. And for the outstanding students, it offers a gap year after the second year to pursue entrepreneurship full time.
The policy has something for the teachers as well as college or university professors who work along with students at an incubator to move out and pursue entrepreneurship for a specified time and should they fail, they will be allowed to join back.
It also offers a special faculty upgradation scheme to enhance infrastructure in universities to train the faculty for promotion of innovation.
The government will charge no lease rent or operation and maintenance charges for five years if the incubators are set up on government-owned buildings.
For those on private buildings, it will reimburse the rent at the rate of Rs 5 per sq. ft per month or 25 per cent of the actual rent paid for 3 years.
They will also get investment subsidy of 20 per cent of the value of the capital expenditure, other than land and building, up to Rs 5 crore.
Startups that grow 15 per cent annually will get a grant of 15 per cent on turnover for three years.
Technology incubators would be encouraged to expand to niche themes, including Internet of Things (IoT), 3D printing, ‘IT for X’ in the areas of pharma, oil & gas, urban management, social media, mobility, analytics and cloud computing, fabless semiconductors and electronics, animation & gaming, digital media, entertainment, visual effects, printed & organic electronics.
The policy calls for expansion of the startup ecosystem to bio-technology, nanotechnology, healthcare, agri-business, business processes, food processing, textiles & garments, fashion designing, ayurveda, tourism, retail and arts.
The government will prepare a platform for top 50 startups to meet and interact with mentors, funding support, product development, marketing and launch support.
The policy shall be implemented under the guidance of Kerala State Innovation Council (KSInC) and the Board of Governors of T-TBI.
