Goa Trust to mentor 1,000 budding entreprenuers

Tips on how to snip bureaucratic red-tape, tap the best financial schemes on offer, and other business processes will be offered to over 1,000 start-up entrepreneurs at a mentoring programme to be held in the Goa capital, organisers said.

Speaking to reporters in Panaji Wednesday, Rajkumar Kamat, managing trustee of the newly set up Goa Entrepreneurs Mentoring Services Trust, said that the two-day programme set to begin Sep 27 would reach out to 1,000 budding entrepreneurs in Goa.

"It is a unique model, where we will appoint one mentor for every two budding entrepreneurs who register under the programme. The mentor will hand-hold the youngsters through the business processes right from start-up till they are able to manage a business on their own," Kamat said.

"A lot of people want to start a business, but are unsure about taking the first step, not knowing what needs to be done, and unclear about the permissions and bureaucratic procedure, as also schemes that could be availed. The experienced mentor, who will preferably belong to the same industry as the start-up, will take the budding entrepreneurs through these pangs," Kamat said.

The initiative comes at a time when the industrial scenario is bleak with the mining ban. But things are expected to look up if the government principally sticks to the main principles of the draft industrial policy unveiled last month.

Kamat said that the mentor programme was tailor-made for the small and medium scale industries sector, which is just the kind of investment that the draft policy seeks to promote, especially in sectors like Information Technology, Information Technology enabled services, pharmaceuticals, service sector, and tourism.

"Most of our mentors are from the IT, construction, tourism, manufacturing and services sector," Kamat said.