NITI Aayog meet: Arvind Kejriwal bats for promoting startups to compete with China

Towing the line of Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the development of the manufacturing sector and advancing start-ups in the country, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal advocated for aggressively pursuing manufacturing and promoting startups for job creation and competing with Chinese products. 

While addressing the Governing Council meeting of NITI Aayog chaired by PM Modi, the Delhi chief minister said, "We didn't focus on manufacturing in last 70 years. Our country is lagging behind in manufacturing. The way Chinese products are replacing India products, it is necessary that we aggressively pursue manufacturing."

Kejriwal also opined that if the state government and the Centre set up manufacturing hubs along with offering tax benefits and necessary facilities to the manufacturers, especially the SMEs to make products cheaper than China, then it will create jobs as well as replace China in the field of manufacturing.

"We need to aggressively promote start-ups. It will create a huge number of jobs in the country," Arvind Kejriwal added at Governing Council meeting of NITI Aayog chaired by PM Modi.

PM Modi on Saturday chaired the NITI Aayog's Governing Council meeting where he stated that the centre and states need to work closely to boost economic growth. He added that the governments across the country need to give due respect to the private sector for the economic growth of the country. He also hailed the Union Budget of 2021 and the response it has received from the citizens, saying that it has expressed the mood of the country.

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Union Budget to boost the Manufacturing sector

In an attempt to give the much-needed fillip to the manufacturing sector, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman committed an infusion of Rs 1.97 lakh crore for the sector while presenting the Union Budget 2021-22, at the beginning of this month.

Nirmala Sitharaman asserted that infra and financial capital strengthening is required in order to achieve the dream of five trillion economy. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the government had also rolled out the Production Linked Incentive scheme (PLI) last year to boost domestic businesses and indigenous manufacturing. The aim of the PLI, which was launched for 13 manufacturing sectors, was to improve manufacturing capabilities and exports in these sectors. The combined financial outlay for PLI scheme in these sectors is almost Rs 2 lakh crore. Notably, balance allocation from one sector can be utilised in other sectors under the ambit of this scheme. Sectors ranging from electronics and telecom equipment to automobile, steel and even pharmaceuticals have been included in the scheme.

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Start-Up India initiative

Startup India is a flagship initiative of the Government of India, intended to build a strong ecosystem that is conducive for the growth of startup businesses, to drive sustainable economic growth and generate large scale employment opportunities. The Government through this initiative aims to empower startups to grow through innovation and design.

The Startup India scheme offers Income Tax Exemption for a period of three consecutive years and exemption on capital and investments above Fair Market Value, besides provision of funds for investment into startups through Alternate Investment Funds via Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI).