Acting as a window for startup information exchange, a mobile application will be launched on April 1st 2016 in India. This announcement brings good news for startups in the mobile application world, both symbolically and practically. The Startup India Summit held in New Delhi last month had the Prime Minister Narendra Modi promising a plethora of favourable policies for startups in general. What’s in it for mobile app startups?

Let’s examine.

Compliance Regime based on Self-certification:

This means startups can do self-certification on compliance with labour and environment laws. As far as labour laws are concerned, no inspection would be conducted for a period of three years. Existing startups wanting to launch mobile application or mobile only startups will find it easier to launch apps in the market. Many mobile app related restrictions may be eased out once the self-certification policy is implemented.

Three-year tax exemption:

Tax exemption to start-ups for three years has been announced under the Startup India Summit. This means start-ups set up after April 1, 2016, shall be exempted from income-tax for a period of three years. This is good news for all startups and especially those focused on mobile applications since now the latter can channelize the time and money saved from taxation on the development, launching and marketing of applications and making them bug-free. This may also encourage many eCommerce companies to launch their mobile apps. Tax exemptions would also attract more investments in the field of mobile technology.

Starting up in a day paper-less:

The government is launching a mobile application that would enable the startups to fill the information without using paperwork and start up in a day. Startups in the mobile app development would be encouraged to innovate and launch faster. This facility coupled with the launch of 4G services and lowering of GPRS data tariff is likely to give birth to several mobile platforms in India.

Promoting Startups in the Biotechnology Sector:

The Prime Minister announced five new bio clusters, 50 new bio incubators, 150 technology transfer offices and 20 bio- connect offices. The healthcare mobile applications are already seeing a breakthrough and now with biotech encouragement, enterprises engaged in mobile app design and development will find innovative ideas to execute in the field of life sciences such as clinical trials mobile app, lab-related mobile applications, medical/research data-based mobile apps etc.

Innovation challenge awards:

The Indian government is on the verge of instituting Innovation Awards and Innovation Challenges Awards among many such innovation-friendly policies. Some of these awards will honour low-cost solutions to the country’s pressing problems. Nothing can be more user-friendly and cheaper than a mobile application in a country like India. Thus, startups in the mobile application development need to tap the government’s innovation initiatives to launch some ground-breaking applications.

The fact that now startups can register themselves simply through a mobile application seems like the dawn of ‘Application economy’ where everything would be run on user-friendly mobile applications. In the first quarter of 2015, more than $ 1.5 billion was invested on mobile platforms in India. With the Startup India campaign, this investment would further boost mobile technology and application development in India. If you wish to tap this opportunity, do give us a shout.