13th May 2020, Kathmandu
The Government of Nepal has invited proposals to provide capital grants for startups (innovation) through the National Planning Commission.
The government of Nepal is providing a capital grant of Rs. 5,00,000 to Rs. 5 million. This proposal is an invitation as per the Innovative Initial Capital Grant Procedure 2076 and the Innovative Initial Capital Grant Criteria 2077. This is an open proposal to any inventor, entrepreneur, businessmen, individual, or organization with the latest knowledge, skills, and abilities.
Meanwhile, you need to send a proposal in the format mentioned in the working procedures and criteria. You need to and send it to the office of the National Planning Commission within 30 days.
Therefore, to submit an offer, you need to register in the online system, create a username and password and log in. For this, the National Planning Commission is calling for submission of the form through this website.
How to submit a proposal?
Firstly, you have to go to the website provided by the National Planning Commission and register by putting your name and email.
Verification will come in the email. While registering, you can click on that link and login with the email and password placed at the beginning. Then, the application form will be available.
You can explain by clicking on the button to save your idea, details of what you are trying to do, all the information about the investment. After this, the commission will start the assessment from the submitted details.
You can click here to download the procedure.
Click here to understand the criteria.
Click here to download the form format.
Innovative Start-Up Capital Grant Guidelines, 2020
The government can set a strategy to help innovators with the release of Innovative Start-Up Capital Grant Guidelines, 2020. Innovators include entrepreneurs, business personals, or institutions that are looking to start new ventures.
The government will be allocating such grants every year and providing it in installments to encourage new innovators in innovative works.
This could really be a milestone to prevent “Brain Drain”; a problem that is proving to be much dreadful to Nepal in the present days. To tackle such a problem the government of Nepal has already started to set up a Brain Gain Center to encourage and utilize their intellectual labor in their home country.
According to the Nepal Labor Department data, currently, more than 5.5 million Nepali youth seek authorization letters for working abroad. One of the reasons could be the limited scope.
Nepal lags far behind in the field of new technology which gives the students enough of the incentive to pursue their study abroad in the technical field. This Start-Up Grant not only aims to promote entrepreneurship but will also encourage students to return with ideas and knowledge that could potentially benefit the country.
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So, the question is who are Innovators as per the Guidelines?
One who intends to invent unique goods or services for the public welfare using their skill, knowledge, research that could be an individual, firm, organization, or entrepreneur. Every innovator is eligible to apply for this grant.
How does it work?
- At first, a committee is established to regulate all the affairs related to granting of Innovative Start-Up Capital
- The committee will publish an invitation notice for submitting proposals in the national daily newspaper twice for all the innovators– seeking to invest in information technology, agriculture, energy, health services, tourism, technological development, etc.
- Interested innovators are required to submit their proposal stating following details within the time stated in the published invitation notice
- Details of innovative ideas
- Expected returns
- Required investment amount
- Likewise, an expected grant from the government
- The positive impact that is likely to prosper the economy
- Other particulars as stated
- After receiving the proposal, the committee will evaluate the proposal within 30 days. The committee will forward it to the sub-committee for selecting the useful proposal.
- The selected proposal gets the grant of a maximum of NPR 50 lakh.
- The committee will carry necessary and regular examinations to ensure that the proposed work is as per the approved proposal.
- The committee will direct the concerned party to pay back the grant amount with interest if the party is carrying activities other than the proposed one. It is mandatory to submit the progress report of the proposal annually by inventors at the ministry.