'Not a truth bomb, only an appeal': Piyush Goyal clarifies remarks critical of Indian startups

Clarifying on his recent criticism of India’s startup ecosystem, which created a political furore, Union Minister Piyush Goyal on Wednesday said that his remarks were rather an appeal to the Indian talent, adding that the country's startups have made everyone proud.

"It was not a truth bomb. It was an appeal to India's talent and we have huge talent in India. We are the people who provide talent to the world... Our talent has huge potential, they have done some wonderful works in the last nine years since PM Modi launched Startup India. We have grown from 400 startups to nearly 1,70,000+ startups," said Goyal while speaking at News18 Bharat Rising Summit.

"There is always a moment in history when you look at the next level of growth, you aspire for bigger and better, and that needs a little bit of jogging of the true potential of India, and I was only trying to show the mirror to our young men and women, show them the huge potential that India has, and encourage them to dream big, to aspire big..." he added.

Goyal, during the inaugural of Startup Mahakumbh last week, asked the Indian startup community to shift their focus from grocery delivery and ice cream making to high-tech sectors like semiconductors, machine learning, robotics, and artificial intelligence. He had questioned Indian food delivery startups for turning unemployed youth into cheap labour.