The startup ecosystem in India will be the core in making India a $5 Tn economy by 2025, it is decided to set up a startup advisory council to assist the formulation of policies. The commerce minister Piyush Goyal will be the head of the council.
The reason why this Start-up Advisory Council is being made is to bridge the gap between the government, start-up community and all the regulators related to start-ups.
The problems that the investors and the startups face could be brought out in an open forum, exactly where the qualifications and qualms of both sides could be merited. And then, the dialogue can be developed and actions can be taken accordingly.
The shift is in line with the division for the promotion of industry and internal trade’s (DPIIT) Startup India Vision 2024 which proposed several measures to promote Indian startups. Several of the actions include 500 new incubators & accelerators, debt financing amenities and cutting down the compliance time period to an hour. Under this, DPIIT is designed to set up 50K new startups and 20 Lakh jobs by 2024.
Ola co-founder Bhavish Aggarwal, Byju’s co-founder Byju Raveendran, Infosys co-founders Nandan Nilekani and Kris Gopalakrishnan and 3one4 Capital’s founding partner Siddarth Pai are expected to join the Startup Advisory Council. However, the names have not been finalized, the names that you are hearing are the names that the council is considering at the moment.
Furthermore, the advisory council will even comprise of current entrepreneurs, previous start-up founders, representatives from academia, incubators, homegrown and global venture capitalists, together with representatives from government departments and regulators dealing with startups.
The government’s representatives are going to include officials from
- The Reserve Bank of India
- Securities and Exchange Board of India(SEBI)
- Central Board of Direct Taxes(CBDT)
- Ministry of Corporate Affairs
- Others
The first conference of the Startup Advisory Council is expected to be held before Union Budget 2020 to discuss the problems and issues Indian startups are facing. Capital gains tax exemption for investors might be one of the issues talked about at the conference.
With the exemption, the government may be in a position to promote redeployment of capital directly into startups, and would additionally restrict the taxing employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs). The Startup Advisory Committee will organize a meeting every quarter.
It is not the first such council formed by the government. You will find committees that handle start-up specific problems and make recommendations. Also, the startup advisory council is going to be the first over-arching body.
