AMN BENGALURU
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has said that the Start up India initiative of the Central Government has encouraged 41000 start ups, thus generating 4.7 lakh jobs and fetching an investment of 4500 crore rupees.
Speaking at the Start up Manthan seminar on the sidelines of Aero India show today in Bengaluru, the Defence minister said that programmes such as Defence India Start up Challenge, Innovators for Defence Excellence, Start up Manthan and IDEX awards have acted as force multipliers to improve indigenous defence capabilities and technology driven startup ecosystem in the country.
The encouragement to start ups in the Defence sector, he noted, has created corporate models for developing cutting edge technology in weapon systems within the country, making our nation self reliant and Atma Nirbhar.
The minister informed that under the IDEX scheme, over 1200 start ups and innovators were provided opportunity to sell their ideas. Among whom, 60 were chosen to prove 30 tech challenges and provided 1.5 crore rupees each to build prototypes. He expressed happiness that 10 such start ups have developed products worth 100 crore rupees today.
The products include high altitude pseudo satellites and military grade steel structures.
Speaking about the IDEX for fauji programme, he mentioned the innovation of Lieutenant Deepak Suman Kumar who was awarded today for developing robotics for maritime applications and another fauji innovator Maj. Anup Mishra who was awarded for developing wall penetrating radar.
The minister informed that 45 MSMEs participating in the Aero India show have gained orders worth 203 crore rupees to supply defence equipment.