Shillong, Aug 9: Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma on Monday said that the MDA Government launched the Promotion and Incubation of Market Driven Enterprise or the PRIME programme in 2019 with a strong objective to support aspiring entrepreneurs of the State.
“We realised that there was a very strong need to provide a proper environment to promote entrepreneurship in the State and facilitate entrepreneurs,†he said, while speaking at the graduation ceremony of CM’s E-Championship 2020 and on-boarding ceremony for the Cohort -2 batch of 2021.
The PRIME programme focuses on – market access, skill development, technology and credit linkages to the entrepreneurs.
Sangma informed that the Government had conceptualised PRIME to enable entrepreneurs to cope to different challenging situations in their entrepreneurial journey.
Speaking at the E-Championship Conclave, he spoke at length on his experiences as an entrepreneur while starting his business venture in the IT sector in late 1990s.
“It is important that we have a passion and a purpose in anything we do and pursue to achieve it. It is my personal experience and hardship I faced, which has inspired me to promote entrepreneurship in the State,†he emphasised.
Urging entrepreneurs to be innovators, he said, “Entrepreneurs should not only produce products but should come up with complete solutions with right costing, which is the key to a successful business venture.â€
He also stressed on the aspect of being environmentally conscious in providing business solutions, which will ensure compliance to various laws of the country and enable the State and the nation to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
During the programme, the PRIME annual booklet and PRIME ID funding was also launched. He later handed over the cheques and certificates to the entrepreneurs. The Cohort-2 2021 batch certificate of on-boarding and cheques of Rs. 1 lakh was given to top 25 entrepreneurs and 50,000 each to next 25 entrepreneurs.