Govt Is Working On Credit Guarantee, Seed Fund Schemes For Startups: DPIIT
Published on 14th Sept, 2020 | 1 min read
NEW DELHI : The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade is working on two schemes – credit guarantee and seed funds – to support startups in the country, a top government official has said. DPIIT Secretary Guruprasad Mohapatra said that an inter-ministerial consultation process is on to work out the contours of the two schemes. “We are working on a credit guarantee scheme and a seed fund scheme. Both are under inter-ministerial consultations,” the secretary told PTI. He said there would be a corpus in the credit guarantee scheme which would be given to banks and they will leverage that to lend to startups. This scheme would give banks a comfort to lend, he said adding that it is for credit not for venture capital. On the seed fund scheme, Mohapatra said that most startups actually face problems in raising finance or funds in the ideation to the proof of concept stage. Some states like Gujarat and Kerala already have schemes like seed funds, but they are small, he said. Both the schemes would require approval of the finance ministry and then the DPIIT would seek nod of the Union Cabinet for these two schemes.
