The Union Commerce and Industry Minister, Suresh Prabhu said that the official numbers of the existing start-ups in the country are 20,000 but the actual number is much more than that, reports from PTI.

The present number of young ventures in India is "grossly understated" he added. He went on and further advised to diminish "infant mortality" rate among start-ups.

He was addressing the gathering at the Goa Start-Up and Innovation Day in Panaji.

The two-day event ended on April 29, 2018. It was an interactive programme organized by the government of Goa to provide a podium to new ventures to scrutinize various opportunities.

"India officially has 20,000 start-ups across the country, but this is a grossly understated number. When I go around the country, I see there are several more start-ups in India," he said, delivering the keynote address.

Prabhu recalled about his recent visit to Gujarat University where he found young boys having incredible ideas, aged around 17-18 years.

"These boys are ahead of others. They"are going to be successful businessmen of the future."

Prabhu further added that the phenomenon like 'infant mortality' which prevails among human beings exists even in start-ups and it has proved to be detrimental to their growth.

"Infant mortality also exists in the case of start-ups as most of the start-ups are not going beyond their first few months of activity. So we must work on reducing this infant mortality rate," he said.

Prabhu added that the start-ups in India showed a growth of 36 percent during 2017, which is promising.

"There has been 36 percent growth in start-ups in the year 2017 which I am monitoring every day. It will accelerate. Start-ups are going to be an extremely important activity."

"Of the total USD 18 billion invested in start-ups, USD 14 billion were in the last year 2017," he said.

Some employees of the large companies have launched their own start-ups in India, Prabhu said.

He added that a total amount of USD 217 million has been invested in the employee-driven start-ups in India.