Home Minister Amit Shah urges industries to back India's startups

Union Home & Cooperation Minister Amit Shah on Thursday urged industries to give their full backing to India's startup ecosystem, which has come a long way since 2014 when the country had just one unicorn.

“Today with over 100 unicorn startups, the youth of India are representing the country on the global stage,” Shah said at the third edition of 'Sankalp Se Siddhi' conference in Bengaluru, organised jointly by the Ministry of Culture and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

A slew of reform initiatives has taken India to 43rd on the global competitiveness index from 71st in 2014-15, he said.


Between 2014 and 2021, FDI worth $440 billion came into India, he added. “We have become the world's 7th favourite destination for investment. We were at number 142 in the Ease of Doing Business rankings in 2014 -- today we are at number 63.”

Focus on R&D

Shah urged the industries to prioritise R&D efforts to achieve scale. "India's industry should not think about increasing its speed but about changing its scale and if scale is to be changed, then the thrust has to be given to R&D.”

India’s youth are the best brains for R&D and CII should make efforts to do R&D in India, he said, calling for efforts to see that nothing in the production chain, from raw materials to finished goods, is made outside India.