The State’s support to IT and non-IT startups has resulted in the generation of more than 300 jobs in the span of about three years.
The main beneficiaries of the employment generation are Goans as they accounted for 250 of the jobs while the remaining are non-locals working in the IT sector.
The government has stated that the actual employment generation is likely to be higher as the job figures are provided by only 55 startups in the state although are a total 88 startups registered under the Goa Startup Policy 2017.
IT Minister Jennifer Monserrate explained that the count of employees in the startup does not include the founder, promoter or director.
She further stated that the state incurred Rs. 92.9 lakh expenditure on the startups by way of incentives offered under various schemes.
The expenditure is the disbursed amount while Rs 1.8 crore is the sanctioned amount.
There are 14 incentive schemes offering subsidy or grants under the startup policy, some of which are only for Goan startups while some are open to all.
Financial incentives under various heads such as seed capital, reimbursement of expenses, subsidy for employing Goans, stamp fee reimbursement, technology patenting expenses, etc have been received by startups.
Jennifer stated that incentives are also offered to incubators and accelerators set up by education institutes or by private entrepreneurs.
The ongoing Coronavirus pandemic crisis has adversely affected the registration of startups with new registrations in the current year 2020-21 falling down to zero; it was 35 in 2019-20 and 53 the year before.
Porvorim MLA Rohan Khaunte raised a question in the state assembly to which Jennifer replied that the committee to approve incentives held five meetings till date with the last meeting held on February 27 2020.
The government is eager to provide a favourable ecosystem for the startups so as to attract new units from other states and also encourage locals to take up entrepreneurship and self-employment.
The details disclosed by the government have shown that registered startups in the state have a workforce ranging between five to six employees while the number of startups having 20 employees or more are few.
