Union Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment Ramdas Athawale on Wednesday inaugurated the Incubation Centre at North Eastern Hill University (NEHU), Shillong.
The centre has been set up to help the people of Meghalaya in developing their entrepreneurial skills.
Meghalaya Minister of for Arts and Culture AL Hek, Vice Chancellor of NEHU Prof SK Srivastava and other officials were present on the occasion.
The Union Minister acknowledged the beautiful landscape and pristine climate of Meghalaya.
He said such natural gifts should be supplemented with development of industries, universities and skill development centre so that the youths of the region can excel at par with the rest of the country.
“Such Incubation Centre will benefit people in developing their entrepreneurial skills and help generate and provide employment opportunities for a lot of individuals,” he added.
The concept of Incubation Centre is drawn from the vision of Prime Minister’s ‘Self-efficiency in country’s products under Make in India’.
This aims at providing an ecosystem for start-ups to offer guidance, mentoring, physical space and network for funding and value based collaboration for incubation of novel ideas.
Hek said the Incubation Centre will meet the needs of young minds of the State and neighbouring regions.
He added that demand driven projects which are applicable to the State should be incorporated by the Centre which will benefit the people.
The Incubation Centre will offer active incubation support to the new proposed ventures to become independent and self-supporting over the period.
The centre will also help provide technical knowhow to these ventures to become efficient, competent models so that they become eligible for formal funding support from donor, philanthropists, network partners and investors.
The Union Minister assured of sanctioning Rs 2 crore from his ministry for the establishment of the Incubation Centre.