Union minister inaugurates incubation centre at NEHU

SHILLONG: Union Minister of state for social justice and empowerment Ramdas Athawale inaugurated the incubation centre at North Eastern Hill University (NEHU) on Wednesday.
The aim is to provide an eco-system for start-ups, offer guidance, mentoring, physical space and network for funding and value-based collaboration for incubation of novel ideas.
Speaking at the inaugural programme, D Walia of the Department of Environmental Studies, NEHU said the incubation centre will help young minds and set them up on entrepreneurship as he maintained that the ideas of entrepreneurs are to be validated.
Athawale appreciated the landscape and pleasant climate of Meghalaya and said that such natural gifts should be supplemented with development of industries, universities and skill development centre so that the youths of the region can excel on par with the rest of the country.
Such incubation centre will benefit people in developing their entrepreneurial skills and help generate and provide employment opportunities for a lot of individuals, he added.
He spoke about honing the skills of budding entrepreneurs to give shape to the concepts of students/entrepreneurs.
Health and Family Welfare Minister AL Hek said the projects taken up should have value for the state and the Northeastern region as a whole.
“The state needs demand-driven projects which are applicable to the state and which can be emulated in other Northeastern states. Otherwise it will be wastage of time, energy and money,” he said.