He said, “India in its 75th year of Independence is now home to as many as 75,000 StartUps.”
New Delhi: Globally, India ranks third in the start-up ecosystem and also in terms of number of Unicorns. As per the latest data, there are currently 105 Unicorns, out of which 44 were born in 2021 and 19 in 2022, said MoS Dr Jitendra Singh.
Singh was delivering the keynote address at ‘DST StartUp Utsav; at Dr Ambedkar International Centre.
The minister said the decade 2021-30 is expected to bring transformational changes for Indian Science, Technology and Innovation (STI). Dr Jitendra Singh said, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India has increased the Gross Expenditure on R&D (GERD) more than three times in the last few years. He said, as per the latest data, India has over five lakh R&D personnel, the number that has shown a 40%-50% increase in the last eight years.
In the last eight years, Dr Jitendra Singh said, “women’s participation in extramural R&D has also doubled and now India occupies 3rd rank in terms of number of PhDs awarded in Science and Engineering (S&E) after the USA and China. With the shifting global powers and technology becoming the epicentre of international engagements and rulemaking, India under Modi is living up to global benchmarks.”
Referring to Prime Minister Modi’s launch of StartUp India from the ramparts of Red Fort in 2015, Dr Jitendra Singh said, “India in its 75th year of Independence is now home to as many as 75,000 StartUps.”
The minister added, “Modi’s special focus on Science, Technology and Innovation has fired the imagination of the youth in the country to innovate and solve problems with new ideas. India’s start-ups today are not limited to only metros or big cities. As much as 49 per cent of the start-ups are from tier-2 and tier-3 cities. We have start-ups emerging in the fields like IT, agriculture, aviation, education, energy, health and space sectors.”
