C-DoT says Rs 700 cr corpus available to fund startups; no limit to fund right innovation

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State-owned research and development organisation C-DOT has a corpus of over Rs 700 crore for funding startups, but the government has kept no limit to fund innovation, a top official of the entity said on Thursday.

Speaking to PTI on the sidelines of the Regional Innovation Forum, C-DOT chief executive officer and chairman C-DOT Project Board RajKumar Upadhyay said that several delegations of ministers from neighbouring countries at the forum have expressed interest in technological collaboration with India, which will help in expansion of indigenous innovation beyond the country's boundary.

"We have various schemes of government to fund innovation. Some of these schemes are available through C-DoT. Through them, we have a corpus of Rs 700 crore to fund startups, but there is no limit of fund if we find the right innovation," Upadhyay said.

The delegation of communications ministers from Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Iran, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh visited the C-DoT campus.

ITU Director Cosmas Zavazava, Bhutan minister Lyonpo Karma Donnen Wangdi, Maldives minister Mohamed Shareef, Nepal minister Rekha Sharma, Iran Minister Meisam Abedikoushalshah and Sri Lanka Minister Kanaka Herath participated in the event.

The campus also houses the Area Office and Innovation Centre of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), which was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday.

"We have set up our innovation centre next to the ITU office. This will provide startups with all the infrastructure required for operation as well as provide access to a test bed for 5G. We will take the technologies developed by startups to other parts of the world under the umbrella of ITU," Upadhyay said.

The event concluded with a ceremonial signing of the cooperation agreement for joint capacity development activities under the ITU Academy Training Centre (ATC) programme between the National Telecommunications Institute for Policy Research, Innovation & Training (NTIPRIT DoT) and ITU.

NTIPRIT, Director General Raju Sinha and Zavazava signed the agreement.

Earlier ITU had selected NTIPRIT as one of its 14 Academy Training Centres across the globe for this purpose.