Start-Up Succour | Budget 2019

While finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman was presenting the Union budget on July 5, Tarun Mehta, 30, co-founder of the electric scooters maker Ather Energy was in Chennai, gearing up for a big launch in a city with 4 million two-wheelers on its roads. It couldn't have come at a better time: Sitharaman announced attractive sops for electric vehicles (EVs), including a cut in the applicable GST (Goods and Services Tax) rate from 12 to 5 per cent. "This is an extr足e足mely laudable decision," says Mehta, whose Bengaluru plant can build 30,000 electric scooters a year. "Prices will fall, both for manufacturers and customers." While the government also announced an income tax deduction to make EVs more attractive to prospective buyers, much more was in store for start-ups as a whole.

Mehta and his co-founder Swapnil Jain,