Ravi Shankar Prasad launches "Chunauti"- next generation start-up challenge contest

Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology on Friday launched "Chunauti"- Next Generation Startup Challenge Contest to boost startups and software products with special focus on Tier-II towns of India.

The government has earmarked a budget of Rs 95.03 Crore over a period of three years for this programme. It aims to identify around 300 startups working in identified areas and provide them seed fund of up to Rs 25 Lakh and other facilities," the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) said in an official release.

Under this challenge the Ministry of Electronics and IT will invite startups in the following areas of work:

- Edu-Tech, Agri-Tech & Fin-Tech Solutions for masses.

- Supply Chain, Logistics & Transportation Management.

- Infrastructure & Remote monitoring.

- Medical Healthcare, Diagnostic, Preventive & Psychological Care.

- Jobs & Skilling, Linguistic tools & technologies.

"The startups selected through Chunauti will be provided various support from the Government through Software Technology Parks of India centres across India. They will get incubation facilities, mentorship, security testing facilities, access to venture capitalist funding, industry connect as well as advisories in legal, Human Resource (HR), IPR and Patent matters," the MeitY said in the release.

"Besides seed fund of up to Rs 25 Lakh, the startups will also be provided cloud credits from leading cloud service providers. Start-ups who are in the ideation stage may be selected under the pre-incubation programme and mentored for up-to six months to evolve their business plan and solution around the proposed idea. Each intern (start-up under pre-incubation) will be paid Rs 10,000 per month up to a period of 6 months," it added.

Startups can apply by visiting the website of STPI.

The Union Minister also laid the foundation stone of the digital training and skilling center of the National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIELIT) at Muzaffarpur in Bihar. This centre will be developed by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India at a cost of Rs 9.17 Crore. The government of Bihar has allocated one acre of land for this institution. This centre will be equipped with a state of the art training facility with a digital laboratory. Different courses such as O level, CCC, BCC, Programming and multimedia training will be offered from this centre.

Speaking at a virtual event in presence of Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar, Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said, "I urge the young, talented innovators of India to come forward and avail benefits of Chunauti challenge of Government and create new software products and app. This launch is a bold initiative under the clarion call for Aatma Nirbhar Bharat given by Prime Minister Narendra Modi."

( With inputs from ANI )