With Karnataka Assembly Polls just around the corner, the Bharatiya Janata Party unveiled its election manifesto on Friday, listing down various initiatives and schemes it has planned for the people of the state. According to the Manifesto, BJP plans to give entrepreneurship a boost by setting up ‘K Hubs’ in Hubballi, Bengaluru, Raichur, Mysuru, Kalaburagi and Mangaluru.
Currently, the largest startup incubator in the country is Telangana’s T-Hub, which interestingly sounds very similar to K Hub, something Telangana IT Minister KT Rama Rao also pointed out on Twitter on Friday. T-Hub was set up two years ago as a unique partnership between the government and three academic institutions — IIIT-Hyderabad, ISB and Nalsar and is spread over 70,000 square feet, housing over 200 startups.
However, it is not clear what model K Hub will follow and what the capacity and structure of the incubator will be.
Apart from K-Hub, BJP also plans to launch a Venture Capital Fund. “Launch a Sir M Visvesvaraya Venture Capital Fund to support innovative business ideas and nurture spirit of entrepreneurs among state youth,” the manifesto states.
It also plans to launch a policy to promote and encourage women entrepreneurs and set up a Rs 50 crore handloom entrepreneurs fund to help sell handloom products directly on online platforms.
It also plans to establish 15 “MSME Development Centres” to serve as MSME incubators and provide a platform for them to become technology-based entrepreneurs.
In order to promote tourism, BJP wants to create a “Travelpreneur Fund” worth Rs 40 crore to help aspiring entrepreneurs who are interested to enter the tourism sector.
Additionally, in order to support the SC community, BJP will earmark 500 crore under the ‘Dr Bhimarao Ramji Ambedkar entrepreneurship scheme’ to organize entrepreneur development and incubation programs for SC entrepreneurs.