The government is committed to developing a robust startup ecosystem, which would help formalise the economy and help in improving ease of living and doing business, commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal said Friday.

Delivering the keynote address at the 3rd meeting of National Startup Advisory Council virtually, Goyal said that apart from mass jobs creation, startups had the potential to catalyse India’s integration in Global Value Chains and increase the country’s footprint in global markets.

Goyal also said that Indian Missions all over the world would also be sensitised about the need to promote entrepreneurship in India and this would open doors across the world to Indian startups.

He asked successful entrepreneurs, especially unicorns to share their experiences with students and youths in order to inculcate startup culture and entrepreneurial spirit at grassroot levels, especially in regions like the North East of India. He asked academia, government and industry to work hand in hand in promoting entrepreneurship at the grassroots level.

The minister said making mistakes should be normalised and failures should not be seen as the end of entrepreneurial Journey. “We must learn to celebrate failure too,” he added.

He called upon startups to explore the unexplored areas like rural tourism in terms of agri-stays, hotels and homestays that would help create additional income for farmers, an official statement said. He also asked successful startups to focus on the rural economy and work on solutions such as drip irrigation, natural farming etc. to improve the lives of farmers.

Six National programs were presented to the Minister as part of the third National Startup Advisory Council meeting to strengthen the startup ecosystem in the country.

The key interventions discussed at the council meeting included the National Capacity Building Programme for Incubators, providing thrust to the startups engaged in the manufacturing sector, and empowering the larger pool of Family Offices and High Networth Individuals (HNIs) to invest in startups. Apart from that interventions suggested also included accelerating Deep-tech Startups which would act as a catalyst in empowering pioneers, establishing an international platform and a gateway for Indian startups to go global, propelling participation of women in the startups and a holistic program aiming at enabling global mentorship, market access, international opportunities, B2B connects, it said.

The meeting was virtually attended by Prashanth Prakash from Accel, Renuka Ramnath, IVCA, Sanjeev Bikhchandani, InfoEdge, Debjani Ghosh from NASSCOM, Amitabha Bandyopadhyay from IIT Kanpur, Venktesh Shukla from TiE, and Lizzie Chapman from ZestMoney and Council members Manoj Kohli, Country Head, SoftBank India, Rajan Anandan, Managing Director, Sequoia Capital, Sivasubramanian Ramann, Chairman and Managing Director, SIDBI, Sharad Sharma, Founder, iSPIRT, Shradha Sharma, Founder, YourStory, Mohandas Pai, Chairman, Aarin Capital Partners and Abhiraj Bhal, Co-founder, UrbanCompany.

Senior government officials representing various ministries/departments such as Department of Economic Affairs, Department of Revenue, Department of Science & technology, Ministry of Labour and Employment and key stakeholders of the startup ecosystem were also present, it added.