Startups to get freedom from ‘License Raj of India’: Jaitley

New Delhi: Aiming to expand the number of startups in India, Finance minister Arun Jaitley on Saturday said that his government will put a new tax regime for startups.

Claiming that the tax regime would usher in a new era for the startups, he further said, "it is a final break from the conventional License Raj of India".

Underlying the importance of startups, the finance minister said that these small business organizations would serve as an alternate engine of growth during the poor phase of the world economy.

The Human Resource Development Ministry and the Department of science and Technology have agreed to jointly assist an initiative to set up 75 startups.

Notably, the HRD Ministry was already assisting the startup incubation centers in the NITS, IITs and IISERs.

'Startup India', held at Vigyan Bhavan witnessed the presence of over 1500 top entrepreneurs across the country.

During his address, Jaitley said "I must confess that we normally have a large number of formal launches in this plenary hall of Bigyan Bhawan. But this one is with a difference. Because it is probably the first time I see a large number of potential entrepreneurs here, most of whom I am not familiar with. Otherwise, at the formal launches, we always have the usual suspects."

Masayoshi Son, founder and CEO of Soft Bank, and Travis Kalanick, founder of Uber were among the other speakers.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to meet with the entrepreneurs.(Inputs from agencies)