Meghalaya was adjudged Top Performer State at the National Startup Awards held as part of the National Startup Day celebrations in New Delhi today.
The award was received by Meghalaya Commissioner Secretary for Finance & Planning, Vijay Kumar from Union Minister for Commerce & Industry, Piyush Goyal at a ceremony in New Delhi.
Gujarat, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu were ranked as the best performing states in India at the start-ups award function.
The awards are made after a stringent process which involves telephonic interviews of candidates and legal review of businesses by independent third-party evaluators.
Meghalaya’s efforts specifically in funding startups and in providing incubation and mentorship have been recognised by the Government of India.
The State secured the position of Best Performer the previous year for developing its startup ecosystem.
Meghalaya Startup Policy 2018 was introduced with the objective of making the State as India’s leading startup hub by 2023.
In pursuit of that target, the State government launched the PRIME (Promotion & Incubation of Market-driven Enterprises) programme in 202o for building a startup ecosystem. PRIME has been instrumental in catalysing the state’s startup revolution.
Chief Minister’s E-Champion Challenge and the PRIME Incubation programme are cornerstones of this effort. It is a recurring annual event through which promising youngsters are selected for pitching startup ideas in front of industry experts, successful entrepreneurs, and government officials.
The programme currently supports about5,500 entrepreneurs and more than 200 startups. Many of these have received seed funding and zero interest scale up loans.
A large number of incubation centres called ‘PRIME Hubs’ are currently being set up where new entrepreneurs are offered state-of-the-art workspace and supportive infrastructure for processing, packaging and value addition activities.
These PRIME Hubs also facilitate market access for the entrepreneurs to realise premium prices for their products in local and overseas markets.
Recognising Meghalaya’s matrilineal society, 20 per cent of the funding support offered under the PRIME programme is reserved exclusively for women entrepreneurs. A large number of women have benefited from this support and are currently running thriving businesses in traditional handloom and other innovative trades.
To take the PRIME programme to the next level, the Meghalaya government launched the CM-ELEVATE programme last year with an ambitious target of supporting 20,000 entrepreneurs over the next five years with 35 to 75 per cent subsidy on the project cost for 15 different trades. The scheme has already received more than 30,000 applications.
