MAJOR SCHEMES OF GOVERNMENT OF INDIA

 STARTUP INDIA:
On the occasion of India’s 69th Independence Day Prime Minister Narendra Modi
announced the Startup India initiative. On 16th January 2016 the PM unveiled the historic
Startup Action Plan. This government programme aims to fill gaps in the economy for the
growth and development of startups and will aim to boost digital entrepreneurship at the
grassroots. The government is expected to earmark around Rs 2,000 crore for the initiative.
Highlights of action plan are as follows:
1. To reduce regulatory burden, startups shall be allowed to self-certify compliance with
labour and environment laws.
2. Startup India hub – Will be single-point of contact and hand-holding.
3. Simplifying the startup process – A startup will be able to set up by just filling up a
short form through a mobile app and online portal that will be launched in April.
4. Patent protection –The government will make IPR procedure transparent for
stratups. Fast track mechanisms of startup patent applications – in order to allow startups
to realise the value of their IPRs at the earliest possible.
5. 80% rebate on filing patent applications by startups.
6. Relaxed norms of public procurement for startups – to provide an equal platform to
startups vis-a-vis the experienced startups/companies in public procurement, startups (in
the manufacturing sector) shall be exempted from the criteria of prior
‘experience/turnover’ without any relaxation in quality standards or technical parameters.
7. Faster exits for startups – To make it easier for startups to exit, provision for fast-
tracking closure of businesses have been included in ‘The insolvency and Bankruptcy Bill
2015’.
8. Funds of funds with a corpus of Rs 10,000 crore – To provide funding support for
development and growth of innovation driven enterprises, Government will set up a fund
with an initial corpus of Rs 2,500 crore and a total corpus of Rs 10,000 crore over a
period of 4 years.
9. Credit Guarantee Fund – To catalyse entrepreneurship through credit to innovators
across all sections of society, credit guarantee mechanism through National Credit
Guarantee Trust Company/SIDBI shall be rolled out with a budgetary corpus of Rs 500
crore per year for the next four years.
10. Exemption from Capital Gains Tax – Exemptions shall be given in case gains are
invested in the fund of funds recognised by the government. In addition, existing capital
gain tax exemption for investment in newly formed MSMEs by individuals shall be
extended to all startups.
11. Tax exemption for startups – To promote growth of startups, profit of startups, set up
after April 1,2016, shall be exempted from income-tax for a period of three years.
12. Launch of Atal Innovation Mission: The government launched Atal innovation mission
for Entrepreneurship promotion via:
 Establishment of sector specific incubators
 Establishment of 500 tinkering labs with 3D printers in universities
 Pre-incubation training to potential entrepreneurs
  Strengthening of existing incubation facilities
 Seed funding to high growth startups

Along with the sixth monetary policy review RBI has come out with various policy changes
and initiatives to promote the ease of doing business and contribute to an eco-system
conducive for growth of entrepreneurship, particularly in respect of the start-up enterprises.
A majority of these changes relate to cross border transactions aimed at addressing the
funding concerns of the start up companies. These changes are:
 Enabling start-up enterprises, irrespective of the sector in which they are engaged, to
receive foreign venture capital investment and also explicitly enabling transfer of shares
from foreign venture capital investors to other residents or non-residents.
 Permitting, in case of transfer of ownership of a start-up enterprises, receipt of the
consideration amount on a deferred basis as also enabling escrow arrangement or
indemnity arrangement up to a period of 18 months.
 Enabling online submission of A2 forms for outward remittances on the basis of the form
alone or with documents upload/submission, depending on the nature of remittance; and
 Simplifying the process for dealing with delayed reporting of foreign direct investment
(FDI) related transactions by building a penalty structure into the regulation itself.

 STAND UP INDIA:

The "Start up India Stand up India" initiative was announced by Government to promote
entrepreneurship among SC/ST and Women entrepreneurs. The Scheme is intended to
facilitate at least two such projects per bank branch, on an average one for each category of
entrepreneur. It is expected to benefit at least 2.5 lakh borrowers. The stand up India scheme
provides for refinance window through Small Industries Development Bank of India
(SIDBI) with an initial amount of Rs. 10,000 crore, Creation of a credit guarantee
mechanism through the National Credit Guarantee Trustee Company (NCGTC),
Handholding support for borrowers both at the pre loan stage and during operations. This
would include increasing their familiarity with factoring services, registration with online
platforms and e-market places as well as sessions on best practices and problem solving. The
overall intent of the approval is to leverage the institutional credit structure to reach out to
these under-served sectors of the population by facilitating bank loans repayable up to 7
years and between Rs. 10 lakh to Rs. 100 lakh for greenfield enterprises in the non farm
sector set up by such SC, ST and Women borrowers. Under Stand-up India initiative,
each of the 1.25 lakh bank branches would be encouraged to fund a SC/ST and
woman entrepreneurs to create 2.5 lakh new entrepreneurs in the country.

 MAKE IN INDIA:

Make in India initiative launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 25th September last
year was an initiative aimed at making India a global manufacturing hub. The 'Make in India'
program is an initiative launched to encourage companies to increase manufacturing in India.
This not only includes attracting overseas companies to set up shop in India, but also
encouraging domestic companies to increase production within the country. Fostering
innovation, protecting intellectual property, and enhancing skill development are the other
aims of the program .Under the 'Make in India' initiative, the government has, in the last one
year, announced several steps to improve the business environment by easing processes to
do business in the country, and attract foreign investments. There are 4 major policies under
the 'Make in India' program:

1. New Initiatives: This initiative is to improve the ease of doing business in India, which
includes increasing the speed with which protocols are met with, and increasing
transparency. For ease of doing business Government has taken many steps like
Environment clearances can be sought online, Validity of Industrial license is extended to
three years; Paper registers are replaced by electronic registers by businessmen etc.
2. Foreign Direct Investment (FDI): The government has allowed 100% FDI in all the
sectors except Space (74%), Defence (49%) and News Media (26%). FDI restrictions in tea
plantation has been removed, while the FDI limit in defence sector has been raised from
the earlier 26% to 49% currently.
3. Intellectual Property Facts: The government has decided to improve and protect the
intellectual property rights of innovators and creators by upgrading infrastructure, and
using state-of-the-art technology. The main aim of intellectual property rights (IPR) is to
establish a vibrant intellectual property regime in the country.
4. National Manufacturing: Under ‘Make in India’ initiative the vision is to increase
manufacturing sector growth to 12-14% per annum over the medium term, to increase the
share of manufacturing in the country’s Gross Domestic Product from 16% to 25% by
2022, to create 100 million additional jobs by 2022 in manufacturing sector, to enhance the
global competitiveness of the Indian manufacturing sector.

The government organized Make in India week from 13th Feb to 18th Feb at Mumbai.
This event had secured investment commitments worth Rs 15.2 lakh crore. Over
2,500 international and 8,000 domestic companies were claimed to have participated in the
week-long multi- sectoral industrial event, apart foreign government delegations from 68
countries and business teams from 72 nations.

 Skill India Mission: Skill India Mission is a part of the government's 'war against
poverty'. The target is to impart skills to 40 crore youth by 2022 under its Skill India
Mission. The initiatives include National Skill Development Mission, National Policy for
Skill Development and Entrepreneurship 2015, Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana
(PMKVY) scheme and the Skill Loan scheme. The government is readying to set up the
National Board for Skill Development Certification on the lines of a similar board for
education to set standards and certify skill development courses. The government's
flagship scheme, PMKVY, will incentivise skill training by providing financial rewards to
candidates who successfully complete approved skill training programmes. The scheme
 aims to recognise and provide skill to 24 lakh youth who lack formal certification, such as
workers in vast unorganised sector.

 Digital India Programme:

Launched on July 1, 2015, the programme targets at empowering the nation digitally. The
main aim of this programme is to ensure that government services are available to the
citizens electronically and people get all the latest information and benefits of technology.
This programme includes various schemes worth over Rs 1 lakh crore like Digital Locker,
e-eduction, e-health, e-sign and national scholarship portal. The Ministry of
Communications and IT is the nodal agency to implement the programme. Digital
Infrastructure as a Utility to Every Citizen, Governance & Services on Demand and Digital
Empowerment of Citizens are vision of Digital India programme. The programme aims at
providing facility of broadband in 2.5 lakh villages and creation of 1.7 crore direct jobs by
year 2019.

 DigiLocker Scheme:
Digilocker is a facility through which you can secure and keep your valuable documents
secure. Now, when everything has turned out to be digital, online documents are required
in order to submit forms and other activities. Digilocker is a space provided by
Government of India where you can upload all your important documents in digital format
and use them whenever you have to furnish it anywhere to government authorities. This
drive has paved way for paperless environment and would also curtain the possibilities of
corruption to the significant level.

 HRIDAY: Heritage City Development and Augmentation Yojana (HRIDAY) launched in

January 2015 seeks to preserve and rejuvenate the rich cultural heritage of the country. In
the initial phase, 12 heritage cities have been identified which will be rejuvenated and
developed under HRIDAY. The programme aims to bring urban planning, economic
growth and heritage conservation together for heritage cities.

 Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT): This scheme
launched by the NDA government deals with urban development and aims towards better
living. It drives economic growth stressing on the need for people centric urban planning
and development.