TN Budget: State Announces Startup Mission For Women, Support For Incubators

The Tamil Nadu government has announced a slew of sops for startups and entrepreneurs in its Budget for the financial year 2023-24 (FY24). 

In his Budget speech, state Finance Minister Palanivel Thiaga Rajan on Monday (March 20) announced the establishment of a women-focussed Startup Mission and proposed multiple support systems for startup incubators. 

“Women entrepreneurs continue to face difficulties in accessing adequate, timely credit and marketing of products. To address these challenges, the government will establish an exclusive Startup Mission for women. This mission will facilitate women entrepreneurs in all aspects of their business,” Rajan said. 

He added that the state’s ambitious StartupTN initiative will assist local incubators, who specialise in emerging areas such as climatetech, ruraltech, agritech, and marinetech, to raise funds to set up centres of excellence. The local government will bear up to 40% of this cost. 

The state’s FM also proposed the setting up of a separate vertical within the StartupTN scheme to scale the local incubator ecosystem.

In the Budget, the Tamil Nadu government also announced the establishment of ‘Tamil Nadu Tech City’ across three cities – Chennai, Coimbatore and Hosur. The project will be undertaken to spur the local IT industry and to facilitate office spaces for enterprises, fintech and other startups in the state. The project will house centres of excellence, convention centres and recreation facilities for local players. 

The recently unveiled Budget also increased the outlay of Tamil Nadu Schedule Caste and Schedule Tribes Startup Fund to INR 50 Cr in FY24 from INR 30 Cr in FY23.

Old Wine In A New Bottle?

While the state did announce a slew of schemes in the Budget, these have largely been announced previously by Chief Minister MK Stalin. At the fag end of December 2022, Stalin unveiled schemes that offered financial support and incubation facilities for women-led, greenetech and rural impact startups. 

While the fine print of the new Budget announcements is yet to come into the public domain, Stalin, in December, said that 25% of the total funds earmarked for the TANSEED scheme would be set aside for women-led startups. He had also announced the launch of an annual accelerator for femtech startups. 

In January, the state approved equity investments of up to INR 7.5 Cr in five startups operated by entrepreneurs from SC/ST communities. 

Last year, the government said that it was planning to help create at least 10,000 startups by 2026.