Gujarat to bring drastic improvement in education, startup policies

Gandhinagar, Oct 25 (IANS) Gujarat Education Minister Jitu Vaghani on Monday said that the state government is going to bring drastic changes and improvement in the policies related to education and startups and told the students that India was indeed on its way to becoming the 'Vishwaguru' (world leader).

He was speaking at the inauguration of the Defence Design & Technology Incubator of India (DDTII) at the Karnavati University in Gandhinagar.

"You will be amazed at the drastic changes the Gujarat government will be bringing in the education sector in a couple of months. Not only are we going to raise the amount of the incentives to the students but also we are bringing in big changes in the policies. The government wants to hold hands of each student, right from standard 6 onwards, those who want to do something," said Vaghani.

"One thing is certain that we are on the way to become the 'Vishwaguru' under the able leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi," he said.

"The startup policy was started in 2017 and we will form a new policy in 2022. As part of the policy, we will increase the allocation given to universities for supporting student startups. Through the policy, we will support all forms of student innovations under 'Mind to Market' initiative," added Vaghani.

The incubator is promoted under Defence Design & Technology Incubator of India Foundation which is a not-for-profit company registered under Section 8 of the Companies Act, 2013.

"Defence is a very closed sector. Selling your product to the Armed Forces is a different thing. We will give the students the customer connect. We have good connect with the service headquarters of the armed forces with PSUs like HAL, BHEL. We will bring the startups closer to these customers. We will be the nodal agency to do that," said Dr Nishit Pandya, the director, DDTII.

"We already have 4 mentors on board, we plan to have hundred mentors by the next year. We are planning to have Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with defence companies. We are already in talks with Adani Defence, L&T Defence, Tata advance systems," added Pandya.

"We are also intending to connect with the national level funding agencies like IDEX, TDF from DRDO. These agencies have special funding for defence. The Karnavati university has also allocated fund of Rs 50 lakh for startups," added Pandya.