Vote on Account 2014: Government to set up Rs 200-cr VC fund for scheduled castes with IFCI

To promote entrepreneurship among the scheduled castes and to provide concessional finance to them, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram has announced that IFCI will set-up a Venture Capital Fund of Rs. 200 crore, which can be supplemented every year.

Delivering his Interim Budget Speech Chidambaram added that Ministry of MSME has already created the ‘India Inclusive Innovation Fund’ to promote grass root innovations with social returns to support enterprises in the MSME sector with an initial contribution of Rs.100 crore to the corpus of the fund.

“This initiative has been in works for a long time, and it is great to see this come to fruition. This Rs. 100 crore from government will pave the way to raise the full Rs. 500 crore of first corpus, and it will go a long way in terms of promoting inclusive innovation in the country,” says Alok Mittal, Managing Director, Canaan Partners.