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 A total of 46 startups have been recognised as winners of National Startup Awards 2021 along with 1 incubator and 1 accelerator, officials said on Saturday.

A total of 2,177 applications were received from Startups across the 49 sub-sectors along with applications from 53 incubators and 6 accelerators for the ecosystem enablers categories.

These applicants included 863 women-led, 414 innovations for combatting Covid-19 and 253 startups working in rural areas.

The second edition of the awards invited applications across sectors including Agriculture, Animal Husbandry, Drinking Water, Education & Skill Development, Energy, Enterprise Technology, Environment, Fintech, Food Processing, Health & Wellness, Industry 4.0, Security, Space and Transport and Travel. Six special categories were also introduced to recognize exceptional Startups contributing to the good of the society.

All applicants were evaluated against six broad parameters namely Innovation, Scalability, Economic Impact, Social Impact, Environmental Impact, and Inclusiveness and Diversity.

After three rounds of detailed evaluation, 175 startups were selected for presentation before the jury which made presentations before the 16 specialist jury panels, which were domain experts from industry, investors and government, informed the ministry of commerce and industry.

The felicitation ceremony was accompanied by the release of an e-Report on National Startup Awards 2021 highlighting the year-round handholding support provided to the finalists of first edition of National Startup Awards and the journey of NSA 2021.

The 'Blockchain-enabled verification for DPIIT tax incentive certificates', 'Digilocker enabled DPIIT Startup recognition certificate' and second edition of the 'Startup Champions' programme on Doordarshan were also launched during the event.