Daijiworld Media Network-Mangaluru (RJP)

Mangaluru, Feb 11: A new concept of ‘Start-up district’ will take place in India and Mangaluru will become the first city in India to be the headquarters of such district. It is believed that Dakshina Kannada district is going to benefit enormously from this initiative.

Commerce Minister Nirmal Sitharaman herself is reportedly pitching for the cluster to be developed in Mangaluru. The minister is a Rajya Sabha MP from Karnataka.

The cluster will be replete with incubation centres and tinkering labs for schools as part of the Start-up India initiative.

Nirmal Sitharaman

The government is set to create the country's first “start-up district” replete with incubation centres and tinkering labs for schools to devise innovation solutions in agriculture, health and education, as per sources in New Delhi.

Incubators give start-ups space to operate, and mentoring so that they can scale up their business.

Infrastructure

Sources also said that apart from funding the initiative, the government will ensure that roads, electricity and digital networks are provided for the project. No cost assessment has been done so far.

The incubation centres will provide specialised services for sectors including agriculture, medicine and pharma, along with information technology.

The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion and the government’s policy think-thank NITI Aayog will throw open a grand challenge in March to pick the institution that will operate the incubation centres and the school-level tinkering labs.

As part of the Start-up India action plan announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in January last year, the government wants to promote entrepreneurship, provide pre-incubation training and a seed fund for high-growth startups.