MoHUA Urges Startups To Look Towards Waste Management, Says Govt Committed To Support

Union Minister for Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) Hardeep Puri has said that India’s cleanliness challenges provide a huge opportunity for startups to innovate and develop enterprises.

“Plastic waste management, mechanised solutions to sewer and septic tank cleaning, scientific processing of solid and liquid waste etc. provide huge opportunities to the startups for innovation and enterprise development,” said Puri.

He further reiterated the government’s commitment towards providing support and facilitation for startups involved in finding solutions that promote cleanliness. 

The Minister made the comments while interacting with the startups shortlisted under Swachhata Startup challenge in New Delhi on Monday (September 19).

The Swachhata Startup Challenge was launched in January earlier this year as part of a collaboration between MoHUA, Agence Française de Développement AFD) and the Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT).

The programme sought innovative solutions from startups in the waste management category across four thematic areas namely social Inclusion, solid waste management, plastic waste management and digital enablement.

In a statement, the government said that the initiative was launched to promote an enabling environment for development startups and entrepreneurs in the waste management sector.

The winner of the competition will be announced on Tuesday (September 20) and 10 startups will receive a financial support of INR 25 Lakh each and a year-long incubation support. Besides, the ‘eligible’ startups will also receive incentives including an INR 50 Lakh follow-on investment from Villgro and technology support worth $100K from Amazon Web Services.

A total of 244 submissions were received as part of the challenge and, subsequently, only 30 solutions were shortlisted for the next round of evaluation. Of these, awards will be bestowed upon only 10 of the selected startups. 

The solutions were assessed by a jury consisting of academicians, industry representatives, officials, among others. The final event will take place at New Delhi’s Dr. Ambedkar International Centre later today. 

The event is expected to be attended by top dignitaries including investors, industry experts as well as representatives of DPIIT, FCCII, CII and other associations. 

The grants are part of the larger Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban 2.0 programme which operates under the aegis of MoHUA. The mission has been envisaged to nurture startups in the sanitation and waste management space.

Leveraging The Ecosystem

Interestingly, this is another startup challenge that MoHUA has undertaken in the last few months. Earlier, in March, the ministry had also launched its ‘India Water Pitch Pilot-Scale Startup Challenge.’

Earlier this month, the Puri-led ministry selected 76 startups under the initiative to work in the water sector including areas of water supply, used water management, water body rejuvenation and ground water management.

Each of the selected watertech startups were provided with up to INR 20 Lakh to work in the space and to build innovative solutions to tackle water scarcity. 

The evolving space is also witnessing a renewed interest from investors that are also vying for a pie of the growing industry. In a major push, FMCG major Hindustan Unilever (HUL) last month announced that it will invest INR 1.6 Cr each in five homegrown tech startups that are developing solutions for plastic waste, plastic reuse and compostable packaging. 

In January this year, the cloud-based waste management startup Recykal raised $22 Mn in a round led by Morgan Stanley India. In the same month, Bengaluru-based green packaging startup Bambrew bagged $2.35 Mn in its Pre-Series A round led by Blue Ashva Capital and Supack Industries. 

Even the Delhi government, earlier this year, announced that it would support startups that come up with alternatives to single-use plastics to manage plastic waste.

The efforts in the industry are largely centred on replacing plastic as a packaging commodity. While the adoption is still less, the plastic generation continues to  surpass new records daily. According to a report, plastic waste generation has more than doubled in India in the last five years with an average annual increase of 21.8%. 

Note: We at Inc42 take our ethics very seriously. More information about it can be found here.