NT Reporter | Panaji
Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on Wednesday said there are many opportunities for Goans in tourism, services, manufacturing and medical fields and urged them to make the best of these chances by becoming entrepreneurs.
Aiming to push the local youth towards self-employment, Sawant unveiled details of the newly notified Mukhyamantri Swayam Rojgar Yojana (MSRY) scheme, which has been designed to create a suitable entrepreneurial ecosystem in the state.
The focus of the scheme is on faculty mentor development programme wherein teachers and professors will be trained at the Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India (EDII), Ahmedabad, to provide mentorship to students who want to start business.
The first batch of faculty will attend a six-day training programme at Ahmedabad EDII, on December 1, followed by more batches sent in the coming days. A total of 200 faculty members from different departments such as the directorate of education, higher education, technical education, department of skill development & entrepreneurship and school education will be trained in six batches of 35 participants per batch.
The MSRY scheme intends to make Goa a model state for self-sufficiency. “Entrepreneurship is in the DNA of Goans. Traditionally Goans have always been doing some business or the other. However, the trend changed in later years, making the state highly dependent on services coming from outside,” said Sawant.
He said that it is the lack of guidance that is discouraging the Goan youth from starting business. “Lately, a few Goan youth have been entering into the MSME sector. Even engineering graduates do not think of becoming entrepreneurs. There are so many opportunities for youth in tourism, services, manufacturing as well as in the medical field to do business. The MSRY scheme will reawaken the spirit of entrepreneurship among the youth,” said Sawant.
“The scheme will transform the education sector,” he said, speaking in the presence of Industries Secretary Santosh G Sukhadeve, Director of Industries Ashwin Chandru, EDII director Dr Sunil Shukla and EDC managing director B S Pai Angle among others.
The MSRY scheme is being implemented in the state by EDC, which will provide the finding support to students to become entrepreneurs through the Chief Minister’s Rozgar Yojana (CMRY) scheme.
“EDC will provide the institutional support for the scheme to take off. Post-training, handholding support will be provided to the trained faculty to act as local champions by mentoring students, giving ideation activities,” said Angle.
He said that advanced refresher training will also be provided periodically to the faculty to ensure that the mentor network remains agile and future-ready.
One of the most exciting components of the scheme is the MSRY talent hunt, a multi-tiered competition to identify and nurture entrepreneurial ideas from across schools, colleges and communities.
