New policy plan targets 10 lakh enterprises and 50 lakh jobs

A policy recommendation has proposed a National Entrepreneurship Mission to create 10 lakh enterprises and up to 50 lakh jobs in five years by bringing India’s existing startup and enterprise support schemes together into a single, end-to-end journey for first-time founders.

The document, released on Monday by think tank The Bharat Project, said India does not need another entrepreneurship scheme but “the connective infrastructure” to turn existing schemes, institutions, capital, knowledge and markets into “one continuous entrepreneurial journey”.

Titled “Building India’s Next 10 Lakh Entrepreneurs: A National Entrepreneurship Mission-Policy Recommendation 2026”, the document said India has the world’s third-largest startup ecosystem and a wide range of support instruments, including the Startup India Seed Fund, the Fund of Funds and the newly approved Rs 1 lakh crore Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) fund.

However, these programmes operate separately under different ministries, leaving founders to navigate different stages of their entrepreneurial journey on their own, it said.

The recommendation called for schemes run by DPIIT, DST, the Anusandhan National Research Foundation, MeitY, BIRAC, the MSME ministry and financial institutions to be brought together on one digital spine.

It proposed a lifelong ‘Entrepreneurship Passport’ for every founder as part of the system.

Other proposals include district-level Entrepreneurship Opportunity Maps, a national Idea Bank for people who want to start a business but do not yet have an idea, an assigned mentor for every publicly funded venture and a multilingual AI co-pilot for every enrolled entrepreneur.

The document also proposed structured market access through GeM, ONDC and government procurement set-asides.

Citing official data, including the PLFS 2023-24 youth unemployment rate of 10.2 per cent and the ILO-IHD India Employment Report 2024 finding that educated youth account for 65.7 per cent of unemployed young Indians, the document positioned entrepreneurship as the country’s central employment strategy.

It pointed to the roughly 12 million young people who join the workforce each year.

The recommendation also proposed a flagship role for the Ministry of Education. It said entrepreneurship courses should culminate in students attempting a real first sale rather than taking a written examination.

“Every piece of support a founder needs already exists in India, and much of it is world class. What is missing is the wire that connects them and no one carries the founder from one stage to the next,” said Shradha Sharma, founder and Chief Executive Officer, The Bharat Project & YourStory Media.

“India built digital public infrastructure that enabled a billion people to transact. The next task is entrepreneurial public infrastructure that enables millions to create,” Sharma said.

The recommendation outlined a 15-month implementation roadmap and said the Mission would require the convergence of existing funds and programmes rather than significant new expenditure.

Its outcomes framework proposes measuring public support through a single metric: sustainable enterprises created per crore of public expenditure, the document said.