New Delhi: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the Jai Anusandhan scheme during her recent interim budget speech, to bolster technological research in India. The scheme, with a corpus of ₹1 lakh crore, aims to foster innovation, startups, and an ecosystem of research and entrepreneurship.
Sitharaman highlighted the evolution of the national slogan from “Jai Jawan Jai Kisan” to “Jai Jawan Jai Kisan Jai Vigyan” under Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and further expanded to “Jai Jawan Jai Kisan Jai Vigyan and Jai Anusandhan” by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Emphasising innovation as the foundation of development, Sitharaman asserted that the Jai Anusandhan scheme would play a pivotal role in shaping India’s technological landscape.
Union Minister Jitendra Singh elaborated on the scheme’s components, stating that the ₹1 lakh crore corpus would facilitate interest-free loans for young entrepreneurs to scale their startups. Singh envisioned the scheme as creating a comprehensive ecosystem, providing crucial support and guidance in the early stages of startup development.
The scheme’s allocation includes ₹477 crore for the National Quantum Mission and ₹2000 crore for the Anusandhan National Research Foundation.
The finance ministry’s January 2024 report, “The Indian Economy: A Review,” underscored the flourishing startup trends in the country. According to the report, over 114,000 government-recognised startups under the Startup India scheme generated more than 1.2 million jobs until October 2023.
