In The Pink Of ‘Start-Up' Health?

While entrepreneurs complain of the high operating-costs of establishing a start-up in Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru, Rajasthan seems to be providing them with a high-leveraging potential. State government policies, coupled with low expenses, are helping the start-up ecosystem here.

- Vinayak Aggarwal

Having started from a small village called Sikar in Rajasthan, little did Shivram Choudhary, Founder and Chairman, Codevidhya, know that he would later shift base to Jaipur only to receive good mentorship from iStart and an opportunity to connect with like-minded people at Bhamashah Techno Hub. With over 1,600 registered start-ups, according to iStart, Rajasthan has taken a number of crucial initiatives in startup policy implementation, seed funding and angel/ venture funding. Founded in 2016, Codevidhya is an edtech start-up which offers coding curriculum to schools.

Govt Fosters Innovation

Efforts of Rajasthan have been so well recognized that it has been acknowledged as ‘Top Performer’ in the State Start-up Ranking 2018 conducted by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), Government of India.

“The ranking methodology was aimed at creating healthy competition among states to further learn, share and adopt best practices,” Ramesh Abhishek, Secretary, DIPP, comments on the study. The state government has performed well ‘Start-up Policy & Implementation’, ‘Seed Funding Support’, ‘Funding Support – Angel & Venture’, ‘Incubation Support’, ‘Simplified Regulations’ and ‘Awareness and Outreach’ as compared to the national average.

In contrast to this, the state’s performance has been well below the national average in ‘Easing Public Procurement’. “The state should be more motivating for small start-ups and organise more events to enhance networking,” Choudhary adds.