Cabinet to take up proposal on Indian Inclusive Innovation Fund

Cabinet likely to take up a proposal to set up a Rs ,500 cr fund

After a gap of about three years, the Cabinet is likely to take up a proposal to set up a Rs 5,500-crore Indian Inclusive Innovation Fund (IIIF).

The fund will be under the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME). Officials said though the Planning Commission wanted the fund to be set up under the Department of Science and Technology, not MSME, the issue had now been resolved.

MSME has floated a Cabinet note in this regard.

The fund proposes to invest in a new generation of Indian entrepreneurs who are either building or will build world-class enterprises that focus on the problems of the poor, without compromising on economic success. It will operate as a for-profit entity, with a focus on social investment.

Earlier, then finance minister Pranab Mukherjee had sanctioned initial seed capital of Rs 100 crore for the fund. Officials said 20 per cent of the total funds for IIFF would be provided by the government, while the rest would come from banks.

In 2011, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had announced setting up of the fund to help the bottom half of the countrys economic pyramid. We have made innovations in areas such as space technology, atomic energy and automobiles. But innovation in our country has focused mostly on the needs of rich, not adequately on solving the problems of the poor. We wish to change this state of affairs, Singh had said.

Innovation, he had said, could be a game-changer to move from incremental change to radical change. He added the country needed models of innovation to address problems in areas such as poverty alleviation, health care, rural communications, agriculture, animal husbandry and green energy.

In its approach paper to the 12th five-year Plan, the Planning Commission had supported the idea for such a fund, which would specifically focus on encouraging grass-root innovations to help the poor.