Piyush Goyal pitches for a new Silicon Valley for India

Commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal has called for the setting up of an entire township dedicated to start-ups and innovators that would give India its own Silicon Valley similar to the tech hub in California, USA.

The minister was speaking at a function to launch a new government portal for start-ups - Bharat Startup Knowledge Access Registry (BHASKAR) - in the National Capital, on Monday.

Goyal suggested the creation of an ecosystem where these start-ups are brought together on a land area of 100, 200 or 500 acres with all the infrastructure, including mentorship, funding sources etc.

The Silicon Valley in California’s San Francisco is an altogether different proposition – it evolved over a period, with mentorship by institutions, especially by Stanford University.

Stanford University, established by railway mogul Leland Stanford has been the backbone of the Silicon Valley, which now houses over 30 multinational companies, including tech giants such as Apple, Google, Meta, Netflix, Nvidia, Cisco Systems, Intel, Visa and Chevron.

Goyal, however, has a different idea. While India already has a Silicon Valley in Bangalore, he suggested the creation of a township exclusively for entrepreneurs, startups, innovators and disruptors, ideally in collaboration with the National Industrial Corridor Development Corporation Limited (NICDC).

NICDC, which has been tasked with the job of creating infrastructure for new industrial cities, to be developed as smart cities.

Currently, nearly two dozen townships are being developed in different parts of the country, including Bihar, Gujarat, and Andhra Pradesh.

BHASKAR will provide a one-stop digital platform for connecting, knowledge sharing, and searching to aspiring entrepreneurs from startup to commercial production.