Govt in final stages of developing dedicated deeptech startup policy: DPIIT Secy

The Union government is in the final stages of developing a dedicated policy to foster deeptech startups, said Rajesh Kumar Singh, secretary, Ministry of Commerce and Industry on March 18.

This comes at a time when there has been increased attention on the deeptech startup ecosystem, with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman recently announcing the setting up of a Rs 1 lakh crore corpus for supporting the startup ecosystem, along with a new scheme for deeptech innovation in the defence sector.

“The government of India is in the process of creating a separate, dedicated, deeptech startup policy. The policy paper is now in the final stages of inter-ministerial discussions, and we hope to bring it forward soon,” Singh who is a secretary in the Commerce Ministry’s Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) said. He was speaking at the inaugural session of the Startup Mahakumbh event in New Delhi.

Singh stressed the need for startups not only to innovate but also to commercialise and develop intellectual property rights. “Only deeptech and extensive research is an answer to that (creating intellectual property rights),” he said.