July 9: The government has prepared a work procedure to disburse loans to encourage those involved in startup business. The loan will be provided as initial seed capital at a subsidized interest rate of 1 percent.

A working committee was formed under the coordination of the officials of the Ministry of Finance to draft the work procedure. The committee has already prepared the work procedure and is preparing to present it to the cabinet meeting in a few days. This programme has been in the budget for a long time. However, it has not been implemented yet.

In the budget brought by the ordinance for the fiscal year 2078/79, Finance Minister Bishnu Poudel had announced to give a loan at 1 percent interest rate under this program. The project has pledged to provide soft loans up to Rs 2.5 million as seed money to motivate young entrepreneurs to get involved in startup business.

The implementation of this program, which has been kept in the budget for a long time, was hampered due to a lack of clear definition, procedures, and criteria. The drafting of the current work procedure seeks to define 'startup'. Young entrepreneurs with the latest knowledge, thinking, skills, and abilities fall under this category. However, this definition does not fully define startups.

Joint Secretary at the Ministry of Finance Mahesh Acharya informed that the draft was finalized to clarify the definition. Although the draft was prepared by a task force comprising of officials from the Ministry of Finance, it has not been made public yet.