(PHOTO: Reuters)

Startup Village, India's first telecom technology business incubator based in Kochi, has clocked a new milestone with a record 286 young applicants signing up in the month of February.

Taking cue from the success of companies like RHL Vision and MobME Wireless Solutions, a total of 286 would-be entrepreneurs, the highest number for any month, applied online in February expressing interest in signing up with the incubation programme.

The total number of incubator applications at the Village has reached 1,742 so far and the number of start-ups supported is 540.

Chief Minister Oommen Chandy on Thursday said it was heartening to see students taking advantage of the policies framed by the government to support entrepreneurship and job creation.

"Now that the Mahatma Gandhi and Kerala universities have adopted the student entrepreneurship scheme, we expect more young people in college to start companies and businesses. Any student signing up with an incubator from these institutions will receive all benefits under the scheme," he said.

Industries and Information Technology Minister P.K. Kunhalikutty said the government is enthused to see the response from the youth in creating a new entrepreneurship culture in Kerala.

"Our IT Policy 2012 has laid out a vision for creating 3,000 start-ups by 2020 and we are confident of achieving it ahead of time. Seeing the encouraging response, we have also decided to establish a Technology Incubation Zone at the Kochi Kinfra Hi-Tech Park and the first building for this is being set up," the IT minister said.

Startup Village chairman Sanjay Vijayakumar said that with the advent of more incubatees, the main challenge the Village was going to face is infrastructure deficit.

"We will approach the state government with our proposal to further develop the infrastructure at the Village under PPP mode," he said.

"The success of companies like MobME has inspired many start-ups at Technopark TBI and now with new ventures succeeding at the Startup Village, we are literally in the midst of an entrepreneurial boom in state," said Startup Village CEO Sijo Kuruvilla George.