Youth entrepreneurship

SHILLONG, OCT 3: Chief Minister Dr. Mukul Sangma said that the people of Meghalaya are inherently not businessmen, so there is a need for inspiration, encouragement, guidance and handholding for our potential youth to look at the space of entrepreneurship and therefore it is very crucial and relevant to have such awareness programmes on entrepreneurship for the youth of the State.

The Chief Minister was addressing the plenary session of the awareness programme on Youth Entrepreneurship & Business Development organized under a convergence initiative of the State Government with various departments at Tura Government College, here on Tuesday, which was attended by a huge number of college and higher secondary school students, teachers and partners.

The programme is aimed at creating awareness among the youth and college going students about business and entrepreneurship and also about the possibilities of self-employment and business under various schemes of the State government and facilitation thereof.

The Chief Minister while submitting that the most challenging task in a democracy is enabling every citizen to be productive, said it was important for the youth to identify their own respective talents and potentialities and the idea of this programme was to reach out to the youth and encourage them to look at spaces available to each one of them to generate dreams and nurture them. “If we do not prepare our youth to be productive we will end up having liabilities which does not augur well for the state, however, if every citizen becomes productive we can just imagine the kind of strength our state and the country will have”, he said.

The Chief Minister also cited examples of certain communities who have laid focus on business and entrepreneurship with great success which makes things easy for their respective governments. However, in Meghalaya where traditionally we are not business inclined it becomes a challenging task to change the mindset of the people and therefore it has to be a collective effort to acclimatize the young boys and girls to look at business opportunities available in their own backyards and have a sustainable livelihood. He urged upon all successful and budding entrepreneurs to get together and continually engage with the youth on unlimited business spaces available before them. He also highlighted on business potentialities under tourism sector stating that “the exclusive stories of our state itself can be our weapon to market ourselves”

Stating that there is no point wasting time taking care of individual need, he asserted that the agenda of the government in having such programme was to take care of the larger interest and enable institutions to prepare young potential entrepreneurs with the right kind of information and guidance and urged upon the Principal of the Tura Govt College to continue to have this kind of programme for its students from time to time. At the same time he also appealed to all the stakeholders, including the political leaders, academicians and parents to participate in such programmes to engage and inspire the youth.

Stating that it is economic reasons that has forced communities to migrate in search of business opportunities, the Chief Minister sounded a note of apprehension that if we fail to promote entrepreneurship among our youth the attractive spaces available in our state will be grabbed by outsiders, adding that the success of numerous businessmen across the globe must be a reason for all the people of the state to look at the unlimited space of entrepreneurship. He also lamented that a number of projects were getting delayed due to dearth of contractors, particularly in Garo Hills. “We are paying the price because we failed to promote entrepreneurship and we do not have successful builders and contractors,” he added.

West Garo Hills Deputy Commissioner Pravin Bakshi in is keynote address highlighted on the plethora of schemes initiated by the government to help the youth meet their dreams and aspirations and bring out the potential entrepreneur in them.

Various line departments put up stalls displaying information and awareness about entrepreneurship opportunities as part of the day-long programme, while successful entrepreneurs and partners, including Ms. Dasumarlin Majaw of Smoky Falls Tribe Coffee, Tinash Marak of Tinash Agro Industries and Webstar D. Shira shared their experiences of how they started their enterprises with humble beginnings.

By Our Reporter