Youth Entrepreneurship: An emerging trend in India
Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi instituted the Ministry for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship with the vision to harness the power of our youth by making them skilled and empowering them to not only become self-employed but create jobs for others also.
According to statistics, 54% of our population is under the age of 35 and close to 15 million enter the workforce every year. The only way through which enough jobs can be created for such a huge populous, consistently, is by creating an environment for entrepreneurship and innovation. The young innovative minds that we see around us; and government and industry initiatives which are there to promote innovation and entrepreneurship, India will soon be much up in the global entrepreneurship rankings.
India has become an emerging market for global investors and entrepreneurship is majorly contributing to the country’s economy. A stable business environment, market-oriented reforms and key initiatives like Make in India, Digital India, Mudra Yojana, Atal Innovation Mission, 59 minute loan, Stand up India and Start-Up India are encouraging aspiring and ambitious young Indians. Also, with the number of incubators increasing by 40% every year, startups are staring at a bright future.
These flagship programmes are addressing various elements of entrepreneurship ecosystem including organising grand challenges, funding support, creation of new incubators and capacity building of existing incubators, ease of doing business, tax benefits. Apart from the high technology and advanced innovation based entrepreneurship, Government is equally supportive of large scale entrepreneurship based on continuous/incremental innovation or existing know how. This entrepreneurial ecosystem has the largest potential to create employment across sectors and geographies for all socio-economic categories of our youth Within this ecosystem, Government is equally committed to support women and SC/ST Communities, people from Difficult Areas and Divyang Jan for entrepreneurship promotion. Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship plays an important role to promote this large scale entrepreneurial ecosystem, together with the Skill development initiatives for entrepreneurship.
Ministry has undertaken consistent and strategically planned efforts to promote entrepreneurship and provide necessary support to skilled candidates interested in starting their enterprise. As a first step, Common Norms for Skill Development 2015 recognises self employment at par with placement as outcome benchmark of skill trainings. Additionally, a 20 hr mandatory module on entrepreneurial training has been included in short term skill training programme. Further, Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Kendras have been converted to Entrepreneurship Hubs to facilitate entrepreneurship in the district by providing interested trainees mentoring and handholding support.
Ministry has also collaborated with Department of Financial Services, SIDBI, Rural Self Employment Training Institutes (RSETIs) and Civil Society organisations like DeAsra to impart the knowledge base on enterprise start-up, mentorship and handholding and to facilitate credit linkages.
Towards creating the favourable environment for entrepreneurship, Ministry has instituted National Entrepreneurship Awards to recognize and honour outstanding young first generation entrepreneurs and organizations/individuals committed for entrepreneurship development. The Awards has been expanded to make the scheme more inclusive by honouring entrepreneurs from varied socio-economic backgrounds across sectors from all the geographies of the country. To facilitate better participation in the Award competition, enterprises have been categorised into three sections based on initial investments as under:
- Up to ₹1 Lakh
- Above ₹1 Lakh to ₹10 Lakh
- Above ₹10 Lakh to ₹1 Crore
The call application is open from 01st August to 10th September 2019 on www.neas.gov.in, where Award details and application forms are also given.
