Khattar launches CUs ‘Campus Tank Punjab’- a one-stop solution for young innovators to get investment for their startups
Kanwar Inder Singh/ royalpatiala.in News/ September 2,2025
Union Minister of Power, Housing and Urban Affairs, Manohar Lal Khattar, launched Campus Tank Punjab ,at Chandigarh University, to strengthen India’s startup ecosystem by providing a one-stop solution for young innovators below 30 years of age to get seed funding and investment for their startups with a dedicated funding pool of US$ 6 million for transforming their Startup ideas into high-impact ventures.
Speaking at the inaugural ceremony, Union Minister Khattar said, Campus Tank is a big achievement not just in India but also in the world because youngsters face problems in starting their business ventures due to lack of support. But today times have changed because our Prime Minister Narendra Modi understood this problem every youngster goes through after completing studies and given push to entrepreneurship with the launch of schemes like Mudra scheme. Today many facilities are available for youngsters (to start their ventures). Still some youngsters dont get the required opportunities. In this context, Campus Tank is a very big initiative as it will benefit students of 23,000 educational institutions affiliated to AICTE. Over 19000 student startups have already registered for getting benefit of the Campus Tank. US$ 6 million funding will be available for 300 startups which will be shortlisted through Campus Tank, he said.
The Union Minister further said, Our Prime Minister Narendra Modi has done so much work in the past 11 years and today there are over 1.76 lakh startups out of which about 75,000 are women-led startups. Today we have over 115 Unicorns. Startups will not just give employment to their founders but also to thousands of others. Todays job seekers will be tomorrows job creators. Your success will help in the progress of the nation. PM Modi has given us the vision of a Viksit Bharat by 2047 by competing in the world and everybody has a role to play in realising this vision,.
In his address, Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha) and Chancellor of Chandigarh University, Satnam Singh Sandhu said, “Prime Minister Narendra Modi had this vision that to make the country a developed nation and launched initiatives like Startup India. Through such programs, he not only understood the dreams of the youth but also provided funding to fulfill those dreams. Today the result is in front of all of us as India has become a startup hub. In 2014, there were only 400 startups in India and when Modi became the Prime Minister, the number of startups increased to over 1.76 lakh in just 11 years. India today is the 3rd largest startup ecosystem in the world with consistent growth. These Startups have not only registered over 12,000 patents but also created an estimated 17.6 lakh direct jobs in various sectors as of June 2025, a figure that has significantly increased from just a few hundred in 2014, he said.
The event was organised by Chandigarh University in collaboration with India’s largest early talent hiring platform Apna and India’s leading early-stage investment firm Venture Catalysts (VCats).
