Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh on Friday said the government job mindset is proving an impediment to the development of start-up culture, mainly in north India, while inaugurating the first-of-its-kind Start-Up Expo here, covering areas of agriculture, aroma, dairy, pharma, IT, computer and communications.

Dr Jitendra Singh said start-up culture is yet to fully catch up the imagination of the youth and entrepreneurs in some of the north Indian states as compared to some of the southern states, which have taken a magnificent lead, engaging also a chain of globally recognised start-ups.

Dr Jitendra Singh gave full credit to the futuristic vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had given a call for Start-Up India, Stand-Up India and that initiated a mass interest, as a result of which the number of start-ups in India has increased from mere 350 in 2014 to over 75,000 in 2022 with more than 100 unicorns.

He said it is important to take note of some of the exemplary instances of many young entrepreneurs, who are seen quitting their lucrative jobs in the MNCs to establish their own start-ups, as these young entrepreneurs are now beginning to realise the possibility of greater fortunes in this.

Dr Jitendra Singh pointed out the start-up movement in Jammu and Kashmir has been relatively slow, even though the ‘Purple Revolution’ of India was born in J&K, which is also the birthplace of the grand Aroma Mission. He hoped that its impact would be realised through the success stories of various Agri-based start-ups, besides in the fields of dairy and pharma.

Dr Jitendra Singh underlined the contribution of cities like Bengaluru and Chennai for the start-up boom in India and said that the innovators, incubators, and entrepreneurs are making a global mark by focussing on areas like 5G, artificial intelligence, drones, semiconductors, Block Chain, green energy and space economy.

The different Ministries and Departments headed by him, informed Dr Jitendra Singh, are providing attractive support by way of financial assistance as well as technical hand-holding and facility to carry the start-pp products to the market, which also holds a lucrative livelihood opportunity. But unfortunately, particularly in this region, many of the potential beneficiaries are not able to avail of it because the awareness is lacking although all information is available on websites and portals.

Calling for promoting agri-tech start-ups in a big way, the Minister said: “Agriculture is one of the important pillars of the Indian economy as 54 percent of our population depends directly on agriculture and it accounts for around 20 percent of GDP.” He said that the success story of CSIR promoted Aroma Mission of Lavender cultivation in Jammu and Kashmir needs to be replicated in other States.

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Dr Jitendra Singh said ‘Kisan Drones’ could be adopted in a big way for promoting crop assessment, digitisation of land records, spraying of insecticides, and nutrients and pointed  out that countries like Israel, China and the US have transformed several agriculture practices with the use of technology.