Pre-Budget expectation 2015-16 by Mr. Lalit Bhagia, Founder & CEO of MyRefers

For the business environment esp. for startups to become more conducive it is important Government continues to play its role well. Other than sufficient capital availability, it is imperative that a business ecosystem is built in a robust way to strengthen talent through incubation or mentoring. Last year’s budget had number of schemes and announcement of a Rs. 10000 crore startup fund. While RBI is yet to allot the fund and is considering disbursement in phases, an allocation of Rs. 2000 crore may start within this financial year via nodal banks.Though it still remains co-invested fund model where large part of it i.e. 70-80% investment will be coming from VCs putting money only into startups that are registered in India, the rest 20 – 30% funds will come from the nodal banks. It is also encouraging to realize that the time limit is extended from a 3 year period to a seven year fund as an investment in a startup should usually take about 5-7 years to give back returns. But there may still be challenges for both investor community and the new entities. They may still opt to register out of India for the ease of regulations, single window clearances and tax exemptions. For young companies to scale up fast, it is important governments look into the fiscal incentives other than service and excise tax breaks like that of issuing grants with minimum qualifiers, simplification in filing IT returns. Simpler compliances and regulatory processes, paperwork and laws pertaining to manpower, capital gains, bankruptcy and shutting down may help ease a startup.