2. Background:
• Business acumen is not, of course, limited to traditional
business communities alone. There are entrepreneurial
successes we could see in all communities and castes.
Leadership and management skills are there in all people.
But when it comes to opportunities for availing a mentor to
nurture and develop those skills, luck always goes to the
upper castes and upper classes.
• Today, there are more than 100 business incubators in
India.
• Most of them are situated in premier educational institutes
in urban India, where not much rural students or members
of Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes find a place.
3. • Create 95 per cent or more of total jobs in the non-farm
sector. They are being set up by its owners in an attempt to
alleviate poverty condition. These enterprises could be
termed as poverty alleviating enterprises (PAEs).
• Only 11 per cent of the total 1.4 million registered MSMEs
are owned by entrepreneurs belonging to Scheduled Castes
and Scheduled Tribes. (3rd SSI Census, 2001-02).
• MSMEs are an effective tool in the fight against poverty.
There are millions of informal sector enterprises that can
grow as formal businesses and as legal entities in India.
• More registered enterprises and businesses running as
legal entities would do good to the government. It would
enhance the total tax revenue of the government as well.
4. • A solution for this may be creating an institutional
mechanism at block/panchayat level.
• Setting up of Enterprise Resource Centre cum Rural
Business Incubators (ERC& BIs) could be a possible solution.
• The institutional mechanism, ERC & BIs, can help informal
sector units migrate to formal businesses.
• One such ERC & BI in each of the community development
blocks, 6000 of them in India, with start-up incubation
facilities and with information cells and mentoring support
to help informal enterprises in getting registered, attaining
loans, technology etc may be a good solution. Each block
panchayat in India has a population ranging between 1.5
lakh and 3 lakh, roughly with thousands of enterprises and
potential for new ventures.
5. Main Objective:
• Business incubators (BIs) can play a crucial role in
sustainable enterprise development.
• Entrepreneurs are needed to provide leadership to
various economic activities leading to job creation and
economic development.
• The need for entrepreneurs who are capable of taking
up the task of identifying potential untapped areas of
employment, resources, possible technological
applications, new markets are the need of the hour,
especially when an economy is moving slowly.
• This would be the wise investment for the State, rather
than diverting taxpayers' money for bailing out failed
ventures.
6. • A business incubator offers a number of
shared services to start-up companies such as
internet-telephone-fax-telex; common
reception; networking programs; technology
transfer programs; help in identifying markets,
technology, finances; marketing assistance;
mentoring support; help in fulfilling regulatory
requirements and helping the new firm
registered.
7. • By setting up a business incubator, one each in
every block, thousands of new enterprises can be
launched in the formal sector. New jobs will be
created as formal entities. This will also means
economic empowerment of poorer sections,
Scheduled Castes, Tribes and others and would
lead to rural self-sufficiency as Gandhiji dreamed.
Developing private sector is the apt solution to
fight poverty and unemployment.
