Govt to table Cabinet note on national deep-tech policy

The government will soon float a Cabinet note on the national deep-tech policy, Principal Scientific Adviser to the government Ajay Kumar Sood said.

At an Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICC) event on Friday, he said that the National Deep Tech Startup Policy builds upon the existing national startup policy to cater to the unique needs of deep tech ventures.

“The aim is to fine tune the startup policy to cater to the unique needs of deep tech ventures. We are moving a Cabinet note to this effect in consonance with DPIIT,” Sood said.


He said that startups in particular have room for growth but it is crucial for them to be truly innovative, paving the way for groundbreaking developments over the next few years.

The draft policy has identified 10 sub-sectors within deep tech including robotics, computer vision, nanotechnology and artificial intelligence.

It has also proposed setting up of a dedicated ‘deep tech capital guidance’ fund in which the government, private limited partners and foreign investors anchor certain commitments to a new fund or an existing fund in the form of fund of fund structure.

The policy has recommended providing for certain fiscal incentives such as tax rebates to attract domestic general partners and limited partners from the investor community, if they allocate a certain percentage of their corpus to deep tech startups.

Sood said that deep tech ventures require deeper insights into funding, long-term sustainability and other critical aspects.

“Through these policy interventions, we hope to bolster the deep tech startup ecosystem,” he said, adding that at present, there are approximately 11,000 such startups in sectors like space and quantum technology, and even telecommunications.