Every tech-enthusiast has one common question that 'why companies like Google, Apple, Facebook and Twitter never came out of India?', it seems like Indian government has started working on some level atleast so as to give flourishing environment to IT & tech startups to become at par with companies like Google/Apple.
Indian government, which is planning a Rs 10,000-crore electronics development fund to support ambitious startups in attaining scale.
Notably, one thing to clarify that this is a different fund from the Rs 10,000-crore venture fund announced in the Budget for startups in micro, small and medium enterprise (MSMEs).
The Centre’s electronic manufacturing policy, which has proposed a Rs 10,000-crore Electronics Development Fund to boost the domestic electronic systems design and manufacturing (ESDM) capacity, is likely to be rolled out in the next two months.
Sources from ministry of information technology said that - "10,000 Crore Electronic Development Fund is in the process of finalization and we will get an approval very soon".
The government will not make the investments directly, but will rather route the money through venture capital funds that are focused on electronics hardware and IT startups. "We will take small subscription in them. Thus, we will invest in the capital of the fellows who do the investments," the source said.
The government feels that India has missed the bus in terms of creating technology giants, both in software and electronics hardware. "For example, in software, a Google or a Facebook or a Microsoft Office has not been developed in India. Despite being such a big IT power, India has not been able to make any products. We are able to do just services," the source added. The government will create the electronic development fund to make the investments. "We are not directly funding the startups, but rather we will collaborate with some venture capital funds," the source said.
The department of Electronics and IT (DeitY) had proposed the corpus be divided for various activities. It wanted 25-49 percent of the fund for seed, early and growth stage activities in the electronics and technology acquisition. Similarly, it had proposed a corpus of 25% for infrastructure related to electronics ecosystem development and manufacturing.
Please read proposed draft of Electronic Development Fund here as PDF
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