Aafrin Kidwai 
The Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs (MoHUA), in partnership with Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) and Agence Française de Développement (AFD) has launched the Swachhata Start-Up Challenge to provide an impetus to innovative start-ups to come forward and drive catalytic transformation in the sanitation and waste management sector.
The Swachhata Start-Up Challenge launched today aims to capitalise on the start-up movement by providing opportunities for entrepreneurship to young innovators to create socially impactful and market ready business solutions.
The Challenge, which is open to start-ups registered in India and French actors collaborating with an Indian start-up (as a joint venture), invites solutions across four thematic areas viz. (i) social inclusion, (ii) zero dump (solid waste management), (iii)plastic waste management and(iv)transparency through digital enablement.
The top 10 awardees stand to receive ₹25 lakhs along with one year of dedicated incubation support from French Tech, the French government’s initiative to promote start-ups. Apart from this these, eligible startups will get additional incentives which includes upto ₹ 50 Lakhs follow-on investment from Villgro, the implementation partner of the Challenge and upto 100,000 USD worth credits and technology support from technology partner Amazon Web Services, to each winner.
Call for online submission of applications started from January 27 through the dedicated micro-site launched at the event (www.swachhatastartupchallenge.com) along with a video that details out the key modalities of the Challenge.
Disclaimer: This article is taken from a press release issued by PIB
