Were all questions answered during the Startup India event? This group doesn’t think so

The ambitious Startup India Action Plan was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on January 16 with much fanfare, with the PM announcing a slew of reforms and benefits for the startups.

But the question remains were all hurdles cleared during the event? The policy advocacy group, iSPIRT, said not really.

In its blog, iSPIRT said it was associated with the government during the preparation of the action plan and 34 key areas were identified that were to be resolved.

The blog stated that only eight were addressed during the Startup India event and 11 were ignored.

"No doubt the Startup India Action Plan has provided various important exemptions and incentives to startups. However, the key question is this - Whether the Action Plan adequately addresses the irritants that make the Indian startup ecosystem unattractive? In our view, the answer is no," read the blog.

Experts suggest that reforms will be stuck due to bureaucratic hurdles and there was a need to make investments from foreign sources easier.
"The reforms are stuck due to some archaic laws and till the time they don't evolve the framework, everything they will do is a band-aid fix which may open loopholes for someone else," a person, who did not wish to be identified hinting at legislations such as FEMA (Foreign Exchange and Management Act), 1999, told ET.

(Image: Thinkstock)