The program aims to identify around 300 startups working in identified areas and provide them seed fund of up to Rs. 25 Lakh and other facilities
Lays Foundation of IT Capacity Building Center of NIELIT in Muzaffarpur in Bihar
Ravi Shankar Prasad urged the young, talented innovators of India to come forward and avail benefits of Chunauti challenge and create new software products and apps
Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad today launched “Chunauti”- Next Generation Startup Challenge Contest to further boost startups and software products with special focus on Tier-II towns of India. The government has earmarked a budget of Rs. 95.03 Crore over a period of three years for this program. It aims to identify around 300 startups working in identified areas and provide them seed funds of up to Rs. 25 Lakh and other facilities.
Under this challenge the Ministry of Electronics and IT will invite startups in the following areas of work:
- Edu-Tech, Agri-Tech & Fin-Tech Solutions for masses
- Supply Chain, Logistics & Transportation Management
- Infrastructure & Remote monitoring
- Medical Healthcare, Diagnostic, Preventive & Psychological Care
- Jobs & Skilling, Linguistic tools & technologies
The startups selected through Chunauti will be provided various support from the Government through the Software Technology Parks of India centers across India. They will get incubation facilities, mentorship, security testing facilities, access to venture capitalist funding, industry connect as well as advisories in legal, Human Resource (HR), IPR, and Patent matters. Besides seed fund of up to Rs. 25 Lakh, the startups will also be provided cloud credits from leading cloud service providers. Start-ups who are in the ideation stage may be selected under the pre-incubation program & mentored for up-to six months to evolve their business plan & solution around the proposed idea. Each intern (start-up under pre-incubation) will be paid Rs. 10,000/- per month up to a period of 6 months.
Union Minister also laid the foundation stone of the digital training and skilling center of the National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIELIT) at Muzaffarpur in Bihar. This center will be developed by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India at a cost of Rs. 9.17 Crore. The government of Bihar has allocated one acre of land for this institution. This center will be equipped with a state of the art training facility with a digital laboratory. Different courses such as O level, CCC, BCC, Programming, and multimedia training will be offered from this center.
Speaking at a virtual event in presence of Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar, Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said, “I urge the young, talented innovators of India to come forward and avail benefits of Chunauti challenge of Government and create new software products and app. This launch is a bold initiative under the clarion call for Aatma Nirbhar Bharat given by Prime Minister Narendra Modi”.
Startups can apply by visiting the website of STPI or by clicking at the link https://innovate.stpinext.in/
