Shillong, June 13: Chief Minister, Dr Mukul Sangma has urged both successful and aspiring entrepreneurs to partner with the government to ensure sustainable livelihood opportunities.
Dr Sangma said this at the Chief Minister’s Entrepreneurs Conclave to sensitize entrepreneurs and promote wider participation was held at Pinewood Hotel today. Various officials also attended the conclave which was held under the theme ‘Business and Enterprise Opportunities in Meghalaya.’
Dr Sangma said that the conclave provided a space to listen to entrepreneurs and sit together for exploring the opportunities and potentials available in the state, learn from each other and format them appropriately to ensure sustainable livelihood opportunities, so that the citizens of the state have a sense of well being.
“We should realize the failure of not having been able to utilize the opportunities and the need for course correction and move forward to ensure utilization of every opportune potentiality. It is very difficult to convince people that there are opportunities outside the government sector, but that such conclave is a platform to motivate and inspire the people,” the chief minister said.
He also urged both successful and aspiring entrepreneurs to partner with the government and utilize the Meghalaya Institute of Entrepreneurship as an instrument for skill building, technology upgradation, access to finance and markets, and develop value chains to their products.
MIE is the nodal institution in the State for facilitating rapid economic transformation through entrepreneurship education and promotion of micro enterprises involving youth, women and other critical target groups. MIE strives to be amongst the best in the area of entrepreneurship creation and promotion, innovation and application of skills, technologies through harnessing of the rich potential of promising sectors while focusing on Apiculture, Agriculture, Horticulture, Floriculture, Pisciculture, Aromatic and medicinal plantations, Animal Husbandry, nonfarm enterprises and other locally viable, remunerative income generating activities.
In three and half years, MIE has reached out to more than 50,000 partners across the State through various interventions like trainings, exposure visits, workshops, seminars, melas and events across various sectors.
The conclave also highlighted the bountiful natural resource based on opportunities that exist in the State and motivated them to come forward to take and scale up such enterprises in partnership with the government as well as provide valuable feedback to the government on the constraints that the entrepreneurships faced while setting up such enterprises.
The conclave featured sessions on sharing of experiences by local entrepreneurs, presentations on processing, food safety, legal metrology by experts, and open house discussion where entrepreneurs interacted and asked questions from experts.