Centre plans 1,000 Dalit startups over 3 years

NEW DELHI: The government is set to roll out a scheme that is intended to help Dalit techies refine a raw startup idea in the best technological facilities and take it to commercial launch, with the objective of creating 1,000 SC startups over three years.
To be called “Ambedkar Social Innovation Incubation Mission”, the social justice and empowerment ministry programme will help “incubate” ideas from young Dalit techies.
The uncertainty about future is seen as a major inhibiting factor among marginalised sections and this turns them to regular employment rather than innovation and entrepreneurship.
The ASIIM will run from 2020-24 with a total budget of Rs 308.8 crore. The funds will be routed through the social justice ministry’s “Venture Capital Fund for SCs” which is managed by the IFCI Venture Capital Fund Limited.
As per the plan, sources said, the scheme will select ideas from SC and physically challenged youth studying in technological institutes or working in the private sector. The government will handhold them in evolving those ideas into “innovative products, services and solutions”.
To achieve the objective, the ASIIM will create a “national social innovation hub” which will tap enterprise development schemes of central ministries and state governments and formulate the outreach policy for the scheme. It will network with governments and chambers of industry, CSR bodies, social enterprises, multilateral aid agencies and international incubation centres to generate support and resources.
At the same time, a “business incubator hub” will be set up to take charge of the start-up ideas from Dalit techies and incubate them. The hub will provide support with innovation and finance for three years. Crucially, it will network with “technology business incubators” set up in premier tech institutions in the country to develop the ideas under ASIIM.
For the commercial launch, a panel of service providers like chartered accountants, digital marketing, legal advisers will help the SC entrepreneurs.
R Subrahmanyam, secretary, social justice and empowerment ministry, said the ideas that mature for launch will be provided assistance through commercial banks, venture capital funds and angel investors, and by the “VCF for SCs” which is an ongoing scheme to fund dalit businesses.