In a bid to create awareness amongst the educated youth about the State Government’s policy for startups, Startup India and Stand up India Schemes, Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Wednesday flagged off the Startup India Punjab Yatra.Disclosing this here today, a spokesperson of the Chief Minister’s Office said that Captain Amarinder Singh lauded the efforts of the Punjab Startup Cell to strengthen the Startup ecosystem in the state by offering attractive incentives to startups besides creating incubators with plug and play facilities.The Chief Minister, who flagged off the Yatra from Punjab Bhawan here, hoped that the Yatra would go a long way in galvanizing the youth to take up self-employment ventures, which would eventually help in creating enormous job opportunities for the unemployed youth. Additional Chief Secretary Industries and Commerce Vini Mahajan apprised the Chief Minister that the state government, in collaboration with the Government of India, had organized the Startup India Punjab Yatra across the state to spread awareness about the Startup Ecosystem and scout aspiring and grass root entrepreneurs, especially in tier II/III towns. She said that this yatra would act as a platform to bring awareness about the Government policies and incentives under the startup scheme, besides providing an opportunity to the youth to turn their innovative ideas into reality. The yatra was expected to reach out and sensitize more than 25,000 students across Punjab, she added.CEO Invest Punjab Rajat Aggarwal said the underlying objective of the yatra was to motivate the youth, create self employment, upgrade the skills of entrepreneurs and provide them support to set up their units under professional guidance.
According to the spokesperson, Startup Yatra includes 19 van stops and 9 Boot camps at various educational institutions in the state. Startup Yatra van stops would be in Rajpura, Patiala, Sangrur, Barnala, Bhatinda, Faridkot, Moga, Sarhali, Amritsar, Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur, Phagwara, Ludhiana, Balachaur, Ropar, Tangori and Mohali. The interested students/ wanapreneurs would be registered for attending boot camps at Patiala, Sangrur, Bathinda, Amritsar, Kapurthala, Phagwara, Ludhiana, Ropar and Mohali, where they would give their inputs regarding the startup initiatives.Acceleration programme would be organized on February 5 at Mohali for ideas shortlisted in boot camps for the Finale on February 6. Subsequently, cash awards worth Rs. 40,000, 30,000 and 20,000 respectively would be given to the three leading aspirants for their best startup ideas in each of the five sectors i.e. Social Sector, IT Sector + Digital Marketing and E Commerce, Health and Wellness, Agriculture and Manufacturing. Free incubation space would also be given to top shortlisted ideas, added the spokesperson.Prominent amongst others present on the occasion were Health Minister Brahm Mohindra, Local Government Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu, Industries and Commerce Minister Sunder Sham Arora, Education Minister Om Parkash Soni, PWD Minister Vijay Inder Singla, besides Director Industries and Commerce DPS Kharbanda and Executive Director Punjab Infotech Ashooneet Kaur.