As part if its commitment to encourage small entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship in Tamil Nadu, the State Government is creating a Venture Capital Fund to support innovative ideas of young entrepreneurs.
The Entrepreneurship Development Institute (EDI) of Government of Tamil Nadu is in the process of building a corpus for extending capital grant support to first generation entrepreneurs and a whole range of activities in this direction are on the anvil.
R. Balakrishnan, Additional Chief Secretary and EDI Special Officer, during an interface event organised here on October 20 by the ICT Academy of Tamil Nadu in association with NASSCOM on the topic “focus on employability skills.”
“The Government policy for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) is very encouraging. We propose to give a further push to this small scale sector through expanding the EDI activities. First generation entrepreneurs will be supported if they have good ideas,” he said.
In this regard, three key areas have been identified in the State in view of their potential for establishing clusters. The sectors are textiles, leather/garments and chemicals.
“Clusters are coming up in the next few months and also cluster development programmes will be conducted by the EDI.
For a proper thrust, we will have Technology Business Incubators and we shall work with people coming from science and technology background,” Mr. Balakrishnan said.
He had emphasised that entrepreneurship is not just about starting of new enterprise alone.
It is about independent thinking and the ability to think differently.
“We need to have an orientation programme for students. Catch them young should be our objective and youth camps with focus on nurturing entrepreneurial skills can be conducted. Tell the youngsters to think differently and come out with innovative ideas, the EDI Special Officer told the industry and college faculty.
According to him, small business establishments can survive only if they rethink their strategy and come out with new business models.
“The MSMEs have scope for improvements. Right now, they are weak in brand power and that has to be strengthened. So long as they are weak, they will be lacking in operational efficiency and economies of scale,” Mr. Balakrishnan said.
He commended the role played by ICTACT in ramping up the capacity of technical students and the EDI too is committed to skill development so as to upgrade the employability skills among students.
Communication skills, capacity to adapt, the ability to work in a group and social skills are among the crucial factors that are important for success.
Among those who participated in the ICTACT Bridge Madurai Edition here on October 20 include E. Balagurusamy, Member (Education), State Planning Commission, and Lakshmi Narayanan, Vice-Chairman, Cognizant Technology Solutions and Chairman of ICT Academy of Tamil Nadu.
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