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SFGC program: STPI, MeitY award Rs. 20 Lakh grant to 4 startups for creating solutions in growth of sugarcane harvest

• Aligning with MeitY and STPI’s vision for promoting innovation beyond tier I cities, two of the four selected startups belong to the Tier II/III cities of India

New Delhi, February 1, 2023: Software Technology Parks of India (STPI), an autonomous Society of Ministry of Electronics & IT (MeitY), Government of India (GoI), has awarded the 4 winning startups with Product Development Grants of Rs. 20 Lakhs each for qualifying the second stage of the Smart Farm Grant Challenge (SFGC) Program.

The award ceremony was held at Electronics Niketan, Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) in New Delhi and saw the presence of Sh. Alkesh Kumar Sharma, Secretary, MeitY, GoI; Sh. Bhuvnesh Kumar, Additional Secretary, MeitY, GoI; Sh. Akash Tripathi, Joint Secretary, MeitY, GoI and Sh. Arvind Kumar, Director General, STPI.
Shri Roshan Lal Tamak, Executive Director of DCM Sriram, and other senior representatives from Ministry, STPI & Industry also attended the event.
SFGC was initiated with the goal of creating cutting-edge approaches for sugarcane harvesting and received an impressive response in the form of 474 submissions. The challenge aimed to predict the optimum time for harvest, estimate sugar content, identify mature plots, and provide insights in an easily interpretable format.

An expert Jury had pre-screened 108 applications and shortlisted 25 start-ups for pitch presentation. Subsequently, 10 start-ups were recommended for a prototype grant of Rs. 5 Lakh each in September 2022. After 3 months of rapid development and validation, the top 4 start-ups have been selected by the Jury for product development grant of Rs. 20 Lakhs each.
“When it comes to agriculture, a farmer is the most difficult entity. They live with the uncertainty of the weather. With the products of these startups, we are hoping that it will increase the efficacy of the produce and ensure that the right kind of moisture is present in the soil. It's a matter of great pride that now academia is participating in creating a whole new ecosystem of end-to-end solutions,” said Sh. Alkesh Kumar Sharma, Secretary, MeitY, GoI.

“The challenge aims to provide a digital solution for optimum sugarcane harvest. The SFGC program was launched on May 9, 2022. The first stage was the ideation stage and in it, we distributed ₹5 lakhs each to 10 shortlisted startups so that they can develop products for optimum sugarcane harvest. Out of them, 4 were shortlisted today by jury and were given ₹20 lakhs each in the second stage of product development grant ceremony,” said Sh, Arvind Kumar, DG, STPI.
Sh. Bhuvnesh Kumar, Additional Secretary, MeitY, GoI, said, “The growth in the agriculture sector has been tremendous and with the advent of technology, many new innovations have come up. Through this challenge, we are scouting many such technological interventions  so that we can attain good recovery for the sugarcane crop and the sugar which is produced from the sugarcane turns out to be optimum.”

“After the Green Revolution, agricultural production has certainly ramped up in India, but now it has reached a plateau. So, now we need some new initiatives and new technological interventions so that we can grow our current production. So, this particular grant challenge will ramp up our sugarcane production. Sugarcane is a water-intensive crop, so the right use of water could be another strong statement for us in the sector," said Shri Akash Tripathi, Joint Secretary, MeitY, GoI. 

Amongst the 4 winners -- AGAutomate Private Limited, GB Pant University of Agriculture & University, AGMitra Technologies Private Limited and Satyukt Analytics Private Limited -- each will develop product over next 6 months and eventually one of them will be declared final winner. The final winner will receive INR 50 Lakh in the first year and INR 10 lakhs per year for the next two years towards the operation and maintenance of the solution.

The winning solution will be deployed in a 100-acre plot area for use by the Government of India, state government entities, and sugar mills for a period of three years. The winner startup will provide dissemination advisory to farmers for the next two years.
With programs like SFGC, MeitY and STPI are charting a new course for innovation and entrepreneurship in the country which does not limit itself to Tier-I / Metro locations. Today’s felicitation is a testimony to that fact given that two of the four selected teams come from Tier II/III cities.

About SFGC:

SFGC is a futuristic initiative aimed at transforming the agriculture industry in India and enhancing farmers' livelihoods. With technology intervention at the forefront, the solutions developed through the SFGC challenge program will provide farmers with cutting-edge technologies and data-driven insights to optimize their operations and boost harvest yields.

It is important to set up data centres near the customers because latency is a key factor, says Arvind Kumar

The Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) hopes to provide seed capital to 300 start-ups by 2024.

A scheme was announced by the Union ministry of electronics and IT in 2020 where the government had budgeted Rs 95.03 crore to fund start-ups across several sectors.

“Till now we have supported around 65 start-ups and by March 2024, we will be able to support all 300. Initially, the process was a little slow. But there has been a lot of learning and I think we will be able to deliver the target,” said Arvind Kumar, director-general, STPI, on the sidelines of the ABP group’s flagship event Infocom.

Kumar said that STPI is now focussing on facilitating the creation of software products and has set up 21 domain-specific centres of entrepreneurship across the country and more locations are being explored. It is also looking to set up edge data centre infrastructure and has identified 12 locations.

“It is important to set up data centres near the customers because latency is a key factor,” Kumar said.

The value of IT exports from STPI centres was around Rs 6 lakh crore in the 2021-22 financial year and despite geo-political concerns, Kumar said that a 10 per cent growth could be achieved in the current year.

Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) Kolkata presented STPI Export Awards 2021-22 to IT/ITeS STP units of Bengal on Thursday. The award ceremony was organized during the Infocom 2022 event.