Kerala to encourage entrepreneurship

Thiruvananthapuram: To boost the Kerala government’s initiatives in fostering and bolstering grassroots entrepreneurship, the Department of Industries and Commerce (DI&C) has initiated an Entrepreneurship Facilitation Campaign that spans all local bodies in the state, officials said here on Thursday.

As part of the programme, workshops will be held in each of the 1,034 local self-government institutions (LSGIs) in the State between January 4 and 25, they said. The campaign also seeks to create a sustainable facilitation ecosystem to ensure that projects and services initiated by the government to promote a wide array of local enterprises promptly reach the entrepreneurs, they said. “This is a first-of-its-kind initiative that seeks to reach out to local communities to tell them about all the schemes and support they can avail to promote local entrepreneurship, (which would) boost the local economy and employment potential,” State Industries Minister P Rajeeve said. The LSGI-level workshops will brief the entrepreneurs about the existing projects, incentives and support that can be availed by them, enhance their confidence in the investment-friendly ecosystem in the State and put good practices and models of the DI&C in the public domain, an official release said.

Also, the workshops will help the state facilitators gain a better understanding about the ground-level challenges faced by entrepreneurs and create forums to take the promotional efforts to a larger audience, it said. Entrepreneurship Development Executives (EDEs) posted in each LSGI have been entrusted with the responsibility of organising the workshop in the respective area as a half-day programme in a convenient place.

Elected representatives of LSGIs, officials of the departments concerned in the locality, existing and aspiring entrepreneurs and the public can participate in the workshops. The EDEs will lead classes at the workshops based on the model presentation prepared by the Directorate of Industries and Commerce, it said. The release further said the campaign will bolster the One Local Body One Product (OLOP) project, as part of which 640 LSGIs have already identified a product each of them would promote. The Department of Industries & Commerce has proposed to provide up to Rs 50,000 for drawing up the Detailed Project Report (DPR) for value-addition and promotion of the selected project, which is expected to be launched this year itself, it said.

The DI&C has come out with a scheme to make use of vacant land in LSGIs for developing industrial parks and estates with financial assistance of up to Rs 3 crore, the release added.