With a view to boosting innovation and promoting job creation, the Reserve Bank today said startups can raise external commercial borrowings (ECBs) of up to 3 million in a financial year.
They will be permitted raise the overseas funds in rupees as well as in foreign currency.
In January, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had unveiled a slew of incentives for them including tax holiday, inspector raj-free regime, capital gains tax exemption and Rs 10,000 crore corpus to provide funds. Government has also relaxed procurement norms for them.
The revised guidelines will be put in place by December end. “Accordingly, the receipt and processing of fresh applications have been temporarily suspended,” the central bank said.
It further said that final guidelines on Interest Rate Options will be issued by end-October 2016. Earlier, the RBI had placed the report of the Working Group on Introduction of Interest Rate Options on its website in February 2016 and had sought comments.