GOVT WANTS STARTUPS’ POLICY WISHLIST

India, the third behind the US and UK in terms of the number of startups, wants the companies to list policy support they want from the government.

Commerce minister Nirmala Sitharaman is set to meet the heads of about 30 startups on Thursday in connection with this initiative.

The government wants to know “whether the drift of the startup India is right or not and how the government can extend further support to startups,” according to a source.

Among invitees to the meeting are Paytm’s Shivanshu Gupta, Ola’s Anand Subramanian, Suraj Saharan of Delhivery, Nykaa.com’s Sachin Parakh, Shashank ND of Practo, Abhiraj Bhal of UrbanClap, Anu Acharya of Mapmygenome and Rivi Varghese of CustomerXPs.

Flipkart and Snapdeal are not invited: The government feels they are big companies, and can no longer be treated as start-ups.

“The government does not want to be a big-daddy in policy making for start-ups. This meeting will be a platform for the government to listen and understand the needs and requirements of start-ups and how better facilitation from government can help in creating a more effective ecosystem,” sources in the know told HT.