Govt’s role in startup ecosystem is of facilitator, not regulator or administrator: Piyush Goyal

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

Commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal on Tuesday said that the government’s role for startups, is that of a facilitator and not a regulator. At the Startup20 Shikhar summit in Gurugram, he also said that it is undesirable for governments to start regulating or micromanaging the startup ecosystem.

“Our role will always be of a facilitator. I don’t see the government becoming an administrator or a regulator of this sector,” Goyal said, adding that if at all there are issues, then the solutions would need to be found through self regulation.

“Government is not expected and it is undesirable that governments start regulating or micromanaging the startup ecosystem,” he said. The minister said that the message that goes out from the meeting is the joint commitment of all 20 participating nations that governments will not be looking at impeding the progress of the work that startups are doing.

Ideally, the best way is to stay out of the startups ecosystem, he said. “I would like to personally commit to not interfere in the startup ecosystem and our job would be to possibly push the initial finding for the startups, help the incubators or laboratories but certainly allowing all of them to function independently in a robust manner… and handholding at an early stage,” Goyal said.

He proposed a small group that can help create some kind of self regulatory mechanism before the government starts interfering in their business. Emphasising that India is already the third largest startup ecosystem of the world, he said that in finance and agriculture, the country has seen “significant outcomes” that nearly 100,000 startups registered in India have done over the last seven years and 100 plus unicorns which have created new jobs.