The Tamil Nadu government is finalising the State’s start-up policy, which will be unveiled soon, Dharmendra Pratap Yadav, Principal Secretary to the government, has said.

Yadav was in the city at the valedictory of the Smart India Hackathon 2018 – Hardware edition, hosted by Forge.

Start-up support system

Speaking on the sidelines of the event, he said the policy would be rolled out in the next 2-3 months. “It will make the support system for start-ups much easier, and consider handholding right from the ideation stage to reaching the market,” he said.

Tamil Nadu has been a forerunner, encouraging innovation and the start-up ecosystem, he added.

“Besides organising hackathons, the State recently came up with the idea of giving grants under ‘Innovation Voucher Scheme’ to the successful, budding entrepreneurs. We have committed ₹20 crore towards this in the first year. The announcement is recent, the GO has been issued, but the process is yet to start,” he said in reply to a question.

He added that the State plans to support 400 innovation hubs every year and strengthen the industrial environment. There are lots of incubation activities across institutions in the State.

Industry 4.0 is expected to be a game-changer. We have to prepare ourselves as the country marches towards a new dimension, he said.

‘Import substitution’

Earlier briefing reporters, he said the theme of the Smart India Hackthon (for Coimbatore) was ‘Import Substitution’.

As many as 9 teams entered the final round. However, the team from Shri Shankaracharya Group of Institutions, Bhilai emerged winners for their product “bone conduction headphone.”

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